Allahabad HC grants bail to Mukhtar Ansari’s brother despite conviction

Lucknow: Afzal Ansari, the brother of gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari, who was recently disqualified as a Lok Sabha member following his conviction and four-year imprisonment in a kidnapping-and-murder case, has received a temporary reprieve from the Allahabad High Court.

The court has ordered his release on bail, although it has rejected his plea to freeze the four-year jail term.

Afzal Ansari, who represented Ghazipur in the Lok Sabha, was sentenced to four years in prison by an MP/MLA court, leading to the cancellation of his Lok Sabha membership in May due to the conviction in the Ghazipur court. Seeking to delay his sentence and secure bail, Afzal Ansari had appealed to the court, which has now granted him bail but upheld the conviction. The case dates back to the murder of Krishnanad Rai, the then MLA from Ghazipur, on November 29, 2005, and the subsequent kidnapping and murder of Varanasi-based trader Nand Kishore Rungta in 1997. Both Afzal Ansari and his brother Mukhtar Ansari were convicted in the case, with Mukhtar being the prime accused and sentenced to 10 years in prison. Mukhtar Ansari has been incarcerated since 2006, facing a staggering 40 criminal cases.

It is worth noting that Afzal Ansari was already serving a jail term when he was nominated to contest the Ghazipur Lok Sabha seat on behalf of Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party. In 2010, BSP expelled Mukhtar Ansari from the party due to his involvement in criminal activities. Subsequently, he established his own party, the Quami Ekta Dal, and later merged it with the BSP in 2017.

“While the bail may offer temporary relief to Afzal Ansari, the conviction remains intact, and he will have to face the consequences of the law after the legal process concludes,” Manish Sharma, an advocate said on Monday.