VARANASI: The widow of UP BJP MLA
Krishnanand Rai
described the death of
Mukhtar Ansari
, gangster-turned-politician who had killed her husband in 2005, as a “blessing” from God.
Ansari (63) died after suffering cardiac arrest in
Banda jail
on Thursday. “It (Ansari’s death) is a blessing of Baba (Lord Shiva). We always prayed to Baba for justice and we received it.
We haven’t celebrated Holi since the incident but today feels like Holi for us,”
Alka Rai
said on Friday after praying at Shri Kashi Vishwanath temple .
An MP/MLA court had convicted and sentenced Ansari to 10 years for Rai’s murder in April 2023. Rai and six others were shot dead in Ghazipur in Nov 2005 while returning home after a cricket tournament inauguration.
Following Ansari’s death late Thursday, police in Varanasi initiated patrolling to maintain order. Friday prayers passed off peacefully across the city.
Ansari, a five-time MLA from Mau, had been behind bars since 2005 in various jails across Punjab and UP. He faced 65 cases, of which he was convicted in eight. As of March 2024, 21 cases were pending. Earlier this month, on March 13, Ansari received a life sentence for acquiring an arms licence using forged documents in 1990.
In June 2023, a Varanasi MP/MLA court sentenced him to life for the murder of Awadhesh Rai, brother of UP Congress president Ajay Rai.
In Oct 2023, an MP/MLA court sentenced him to 10 years along with a fine for his involvement in the 2009 murder of a teacher, Kapil Dev Singh. In the same month, ED attached his assets worth over Rs 73.43 lakh in a money-laundering investigation.
In Dec 2022, a Ghazipur court convicted him and one of his associates in a 26-year-old Gangster Act case. Before that, in Sept 2022, Allahabad high court convicted him in two separate cases. One involved threatening a jailer in 2003, and the other was a 1999 case.