U.P. books Mukhtar Ansari’s wife under Gangsters Act

Family alleges BJP govt. diverting attention from its failures

The Uttar Pradesh police have booked the wife of jailed MLA from Purvanchal Mukhtar Ansari and her two brothers under the Gangsters Act for allegedly trespassing on land attached by the government and obtaining official contracts with forged documents.

The latest case by the BJP government follows a sequence of penal measures taken against the politician and his family in the last two months. The MLA’s family has alleged that the government was targetting them to entangle them in criminal cases and to divert attention of people from its failures.

A case under Section 2/3 (1) of the U.P. Gangsters and Anti-Social Prevention Act was lodged against the MLA’s wife Afsa Ansari and her two brothers — Sharjeel Raza and Anwar Shahzad — in Ghazipur district. The police have accused them of illegal possession of land that was already attached by it and obtaining government contracts with forged documents.

The three committed “crime like an organised criminal gang”, the Ghazipur police claimed in a statement. SP Ghazipur Om Prakash Singh said the Gangsters Act was invoked against the three to put a leash on their ‘acts of embezzlement of funds and illegal trespass on property’. Chargesheets had been filed in the cases which were lodged in 2019, he added.

Afzal Ansari, BSP MP from Ghazipur and brother of Mr. Mukhtar, accused the State government of vindictive action against the family to “divert attention of people from its failures and main issues”. “It is a clear misuse of power,” he told The Hindu on phone. “It appears like this is being done in a planned manner,” Mr. Afzal said on the cases against the family.