Mukhtar Ansari Ambulance Case: Vehicle was used to carry firearms, another accused arrested

Barabanki, June 16

The bullet-proof ambulance in which don-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari travelled from jail to Punjab court was also used for carrying firearms, police said on Wednesday, announcing another arrest in the case.

The accused, Anand Yadav, Ansari’s aide, was arrested from Faizabad road on the charges of forgery and cheating for his alleged involvement in the registration of the ambulance, Superintendent of Police Yamuna Prasad said, adding he had a reward of Rs 25,000 on his arrest.

The SP said that firearms were carried in the ambulance but didn’t share detail in this regard.

Doctor Alka Rai (of Mau’s Shyam Sanjeevani Hospital), who was arrested earlier in connection with the case, told police that that Ansari and his aides, Mujahid and Rajnath Yadav, forced her to sign some documents for getting the ambulance transferred in the name of the hospital.

She had also accused them of preparing her forged voter card to get the ambulance registered with the Road Transportation Office (RTO).

Rajnath Yadav was arrested on April 4 from Mau and Shyam  Sheshnath Rai on April 19.

Anand Yadav has confessed the role of other people in this case, the SP said, adding efforts were on to arrest other accused in the case – Mujahid and Shahid – both carrying a reward of Rs 25,000 each.

On Monday, a Barabanki court had remanded mafia don-turned-BSP MLA Mukhtar Ansari to judicial custody in a case of alleged forgery and cheating in the registration of a bulletproof ambulance used to ferry him between courts and jail in Punjab.

Barabanki Chief Judicial Magistrate Kamalapati remanded Ansari to a 14-day judicial custody after the local police put the Mau MLA under arrest in the ambulance case and produced him in the court through video-conference from Banda Jail.

After having been brought from the Ropar jail in Punjab recently, Ansari was lodged in the Banda jail as an undertrial in a slew of criminal cases.

The case against Ansari was registered after it was found that a bulletproof ambulance with a Barabanki number was used to ferry him from Ropar jail to a Mohali court near Chandigarh in an extortion case.

The case was filed against Alka Rai at Barabanki’s Kotwali police station in connection with the registration of the ambulance (UP 41 AT 7171) without proper documents and a valid certificate. —PTI