Court summons Mukhtar Ansari to frame charges in 21-year-old case of jail rioting

Lucknow: A special MP-MLA court here has summoned gangster-turned politician Mukhtar Ansari for framing of charges on April 12 in an 21-year-old case in which jail officials were allegedly assaulted inside the Lucknow jail premises by him and his associates.

 Special judge PK Rai is also set to frame charges against co-accused Yusuf Chisti, Aalam, Kallu Pundit and Lalji Yadav.

 Chisti and Aalam are already in judicial custody, while Pundit and Yadav are on bail.

 Since Mukhtar Ansari, the BSP MLA of Mau, was not being produced in the court, it was not able to frame charges against the accused in the case.

The court had repeatedly written to top officers of UP Police and also directed Punjab jail officials to produce Ansari in the case.

 The FIR in the matter was filed by jailer SN Dwivedi with Alambagh police station in Lucknow on April 3, 2000.

It was alleged in the FIR that on the day, some detainees were brought back to the jail after their hearing in the court. Ansari’s men started assaulting a detainee Chand.

On hearing the commotion, jailer Dwivedi, deputy jailer Baijnath Ram Chaurasia, and some others rushed there and tried to rescue Chand.

However, they were also assaulted badly and could be saved only when an alarm was raised.

Ansari was named along with other accused in the case. After the probe, all the accused were charge-sheeted under various sections of IPC including rioting.

The Uttar Pradesh police on Tuesday took custody of Ansari, leaving with him from Punjab’s Rupnagar jail in a convoy headed 900 km away for a prison in Banda.