Varanasi Court awards life term to gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari in fake arms licence case

This is the second life imprisonment sentence awarded to Ansari by the Uttar Pradesh government. The court has announced their verdicts in as many as eight cases against Ansari so far after finding him guilty.

It is noteworthy that CM Yogi Adityanath's efforts to ensure the effective prosecution of dreaded criminals are leading to the announcement of verdicts one after another in several pending cases.

The Additional Sessions Judge and Special Judge of the MP/MLA Court in Varanasi, Awanish Gautam's court, sentenced Mukhtar Ansari in the case of obtaining an arms licence based on fake signatures of the DM and SP. After the hearing and effective prosecution in three cases registered in police station Mohammadabad Ghazipur and one case registered in Kotwali Ghazipur in 1990, separate sentences were given for each of the four charges.

It includes seven years' imprisonment given under Section 420/120 B IPC, life imprisonment under Section 467/120 B IPC, 7 years under Section 468/120 B IPC, and a 6-month sentence under Section 30 of the Arms Act. All sentences will run concurrently. In addition to this, a separate fine of a total of Rs 2,02,000 has been imposed on Mukhtar Ansari. Failure to pay the fine may result in an additional imprisonment of one year to one week.

Notably, owing to the effective lobbying of the state government, Mukhtar Ansari has already been sentenced to life imprisonment in the case of the murder of Awadhesh Rai, the elder brother of Congress Party State President Ajay Rai.

Before this, in December 2023, the MP/MLA Court of Varanasi had found Mukhtar Ansari guilty of threatening Mahavir Prasad Rungta, a witness in the murder of 26-year-old coal businessman Nand Kishor Rungta, and had sentenced him to five and a half years of rigorous imprisonment and slapped a fine of Rs 10,000 against him. (ANI)