NEW DELHI: The winter had almost arrived in 2009 when Delhi Police’s Special Cell was ordered to crack down on the criminal empire of UP’s mafia don Mukhtar Ansari. In a chilling move, Delhi cops booked Ansari and accomplices under stringent MCOCA.
Delhi Police’s move had puzzled many at that time. But there was apparently an interesting rationale behind the action, sources said on Friday, a day after Ansari died of an alleged heart attack at a jail in Uttar Pradesh.
An intelligence agency had at that time flagged the mysterious disappearance of case-related documents, including original FIRs pertaining to Ansari from UP courts’ record rooms, suggesting that Ansari, who was in judicial custody at the time, would soon walk out of jail.
Ansari was in prison then in connection with the horrific killing of BJP MLA Krishnanand Rai in 2005. Over 400 bullets were fired by Ansari’s men, including Munna Bajrangi, who even cut off a portion of the hair off Rai’s head as a mark of their supremacy.
Delhi cops were brought into the picture probably to ensure Ansari remained behind bars. Bail was difficult under MCOCA. But after registration of an FIR in Nov 2009, even Delhi cops took almost six months to get their hands on the gangster.
Ansari was arrested and taken on 14 days remand for interrogation only in May 2010, said an official.
Five months later, Special Cell tightened its noose around Ansari’s Man Friday, Bajrangi, and arrested him in Oct 2010 for extorting money from a south Delhi businessman, Ashok Tebriwal, an officer recalled.
In Nov 2010, Delhi Police chargesheeted Ansari a year after it kicked off its probe against him. Ansari, an MLA from Mau in UP at the time, was accused of running an organised crime syndicate involved in contract killings and extortion.
“We had also listed 45 cases pending against him in different parts of the country,” an investigator recalled.
In May 2012, charges were framed against Ansari, Bajrangi and others and the trial commenced. However, scenes changed in less than a year later when Ansari’s arch rival and another UP-based mafia don Brijesh Singh was booked by Special Cell under MCOCA in Feb 2013.
It’s unclear what transpired next but a court dropped MCOCA charges against Singh in Feb 2014. In Feb 2016, a court acquitted Ansari from MCOCA as well, leaving many puzzled.
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