How Mukhtar Ansari was the victim of police play-acting

NEW DELHI: In 2009, just as winter was about to approach, Delhi Police’s Special Cell received an order to take action against Mukhtar Ansari, the mafia don of Uttar Pradesh, and his criminal empire. The police in Delhi made the terrifying decision to charge Ansari and his associates under the strict MCOCA.
Many were perplexed by the Delhi Police’s action at the time. However, insiders said on Friday, one day after Ansari passed away in an Uttar Pradesh prison after an alleged heart attack, that there was an intriguing explanation for the deed.

At the time, Ansari was in judicial custody, but an intelligence agency had noticed the strange disappearance of case-related papers, including original FIRs relating to him, from the record rooms of UP courts. This suggested that Ansari would soon be released from detention.

In 2005, Ansari was incarcerated due to his involvement in the horrifying murder of BJP MLA Krishnanand Rai. Ansari’s men, including Munna Bajrangi, fired almost 400 shots, even taking a section of Rai’s hair off as a symbol of their dominance.
The involvement of Delhi police was presumably intended to keep Ansari incarcerated. Bail was challenging in the MCOCA. However, it took over six months for even Delhi police to apprehend the criminal after the filing of a formal complaint in November 2009. Only in May 2010, according to an official, was Ansari detained and placed on a 14-day detention to be questioned.
An officer stated that five months later, the Special Cell tightened its grip on Ansari’s Man Friday, Bajrangi, and detained him in October 2010 for allegedly extorting money from Ashok Tebriwal, a businessman in south Delhi.
One year after Delhi Police began investigating Ansari, in November 2010, the police filed charges against him. Ansari, an MLA from Mau in Uttar Pradesh at the time, was charged with being the head of an organised criminal group that engaged in extortion and contract murders. An investigator said, “We had also listed 45 cases pending against him in different parts of the country.”
The trial began in May 2012 after Ansari, Bajrangi, and other individuals were charged. But less than a year later, in February 2013, Ansari’s fiercest opponent and another mafia don from Uttar Pradesh named Brijesh Singh was arrested by the Special Cell under MCOCA.
The events that followed are unknown; however, in February 2014, Singh was not charged with MCOCA by a judge. Many were perplexed when Ansari was also found not guilty of MCOCA in February 2016 by a court.