UP Police take custody of gangster-turned-MLA Mukhtar Ansari

Tribune News Service
Ropar, April 6

Uttar Pradesh police took custody of gangster-turned-MLA Mukhtar Ansari from Ropar jail authorities here on Tuesday.

Ansari was lodged at Ropar jail in January 2019 after he was brought by Punjab police from Banda jail in Uttar Pradesh on a production warrant allegedly for demanding money from a businessman.

As the Ropar jail authorities initially denied handing over him to UP police, the UP government moved the Supreme Court which on March 26 ordered the Punjab government to shift him to Uttar Pradesh. Following this, Punjab's home department had written to the Uttar Pradesh government to take custody of Ansari from Ropar jail by April 8.

A police team from Banda in a convoy of eight vehicles, including a vajra van and an ambulance, reached Ropar jail around noon where security was beefed up using barricades in front of the jail. Two hours after completing formalities, the Uttar Pradesh cops took him away at 2.07 p.m. in an ambulance.

Meanwhile, the controversial private ambulance in which Ansari was taken to appear before Mohali court from Ropar jail on March 31 was also taken away by UP police yesterday evening. The said ambulance was found abandoned 10 km away from Ropar on Anandpur Sahib road on Sunday.

The ambulance was found registered using fake documents at Barabanki in the name of a private hospital situated at Mau from where Ansari is a BSP MLA.