A Special MP/MLA Court in Varanasi today sentenced gangster turned politician Mukhtar Ansari to life imprisonment in a 36-year-old fake arms license case. He has been convicted under sections 467 r/w 120B of IPC. Mukhtar Ansari is a convicted Indian gangster and politician from Uttar Pradesh. He has been elected as a Member of the Legislative Assembly from the Mau constituency five times, including twice as a Bahujan Samaj Party candidate. He is the relative of former Vice-President Mohammad Hamid Ansari.
Mukhtar Ansari was originally an alleged member of the Makhanu Singh gang. In the 1980s, this gang clashed with another gang led by Sahib Singh, over a plot of land in Saidpur, resulting in a series of violent incidents. Brijesh Singh, an alleged member of Sahib Singh's gang, later formed his own gang and took over Ghazipur's contract work mafia in the 1990s. Ansari's gang competed with him for the control of the ₹ 100 crore contract business, which spanned areas such as coal mining, railway construction, scrap disposal, public works, and liquor business. The gangs were also allegedly involved in running protection ("goonda tax") and extortion rackets, besides other criminal activities such as kidnapping.