New Delhi: The more than 30 years’ reign of jailed gangster and BSP MLA from Mau, Mukhtar Ansari, who has listed his profession as “agriculture” in his election affidavit, is on its last leg, with the Azamgarh police carrying out a systematic dismantling of his vast network of men and resources in the last 10 months.
In the last few months, the Azamgarh police, under DIG Subhash Chandra Dubey, has confiscated and destroyed property illegally accumulated by Ansari and his gang members—many of which actually belong to the government—worth Rs 53 crore, apart from revoking 34 gun licences that were issued to Ansari and his close associates by the previous governments. The notoriety of Ansari, who has five murder and five attempt-to-murder charges against him, was such until recently that IPS officers would shy away from getting posted in the Azamgarh region. Ansari, for decades now, is referred to as the “Don of Mau”, a sobriquet which Google search, too, recognises. Typing in keywords Don of Mau in Google search will display a long list of Ansari’s “accomplishments”.
The properties that have been demolished or freed from the clutches of Ansari include an illegal slaughterhouse that was running for more than two decades, a Food Corporation of India (FCI) godown that was illegally occupied for the last one decade by Ansari’s wife, demolition of two residential blocks valued at Rs 3 crore that were illegally constructed on green land on the banks of the Tamsa river and a three-storey commercial complex named “Paris Plaza” whose market worth is Rs 20 crore and which was built on government land in the heart of Ghazipur. It had a mall and multiple restaurants functioning from it.
Ansari, a five-time MLA, who is presently lodged in Mohali jail, Punjab, and his gang members, who are registered as Intra-State Gang No. 191 in police records, as per official documents accessed by The Sunday Guardian, would encroach government lands by creating a trail of fake property documents at the local level by bribing revenue and land record officials. With no one from the common public challenging their encroachment due to Ansari’s fear, the government land would be “transferred” to Ansari and his henchmen, and they would then sell off the land to another buyer or build residential or commercial properties for themselves.
As per Ansari’s 2017 election affidavit, which he submitted while contesting as a BSP candidate from Mau, his total assets were almost Rs 22 crore. Among the immovable properties that he has shown in his affidavit, are even those that “encroached” on others’ land and now have either been demolished or taken over by the local administration in the last one year.
The Azamgarh police has also confiscated 300 tonnes of coal, numerous two-wheelers and multiple high value SUVs that were used by these gangsters to commit crime and to show off power and influence in a largely poor region.
The Azamgarh police under Subhash Chandra Dubey, who is a 2005 batch IPS officer and went to Azamgarh in January this year, has also invoked the stringent Gangster Act against Ansari’s associates to break the spine of the gang permanently.
A senior police officer from Uttar Pradesh told The Sunday Guardian: “We are taking action against him on all fronts; we are taking away his financial power, which is the biggest weapon for any gangster, we are crippling his manpower by invoking stringent action against his men. We have taken away their vehicles and guns and most importantly, we are breaking their hold over the psyche of the common people of the region by demolishing their illegal properties. The gangster-era is over in Uttar Pradesh.”
Dubey, while speaking to The Sunday Guardian, said that he was following the mandate assigned to him. “The CM and my seniors have told us that we need to wipe out criminals from the state, and that is what we are trying to do. When the officer on the ground has the backing of the CM and his senior officers, no gangster, however ‘big’, can withstand the power of the administration,” he said.