Fortune favored Lucknow: Mukhtar Ansari straddled the realms of crime and politics in Uttar Pradesh. The maverick-politician found himself ensnared in the labyrinth of 65 criminal cases, spanning the gamut from homicide to extortion, yet paradoxically secured five electoral victories as a Member of the Legislative Assembly, traversing diverse party affiliations.

Ansari, aged 63, succumbed to cardiac arrest within the precincts of a hospital in Banda on Thursday. Born into the echelons of an influential lineage in 1963, Ansari plunged into the abyss of criminality, seeking to carve a niche for himself and his coterie within the labyrinthine corridors of the governmental contract syndicate that once held sway in the province.

His dalliance with transgression commenced in the annals of 1978, when Ansari, a mere stripling of 15, found himself entangled in the meshes of the law, accused of criminal intimidation at Saidpur Police Station in Ghazipur.

Almost a decade hence, in 1986, as his notoriety burgeoned within the echelons of the contract syndicate, another blot marred his escutcheon, with allegations of homicide lodged against him at Muhammad Police Station in Ghazipur.

Subsequently, over the ensuing decade, Ansari emerged as a ubiquitous figure of malfeasance, with no less than 14 additional cases, laden with gravitas, appended to his ignominious dossier. Yet, his burgeoning rap sheet failed to impede his foray into the political arena.

Ansari ascended to the mantle of MLA in the UP legislature in 1996 under the aegis of the Bahujan Samaj Party, representing Mau. His electoral triumphs continued unabated, traversing the political landscape as an independent candidate in the 2002 and 2007 electoral contests.

In 2012, he inaugurated the Qaumi Ekta Dal (QED) and clinched victory from Mau once more. This triumph was replicated in 2017. Come 2022, he relinquished the seat to his scion, Abbas Ansari, who clinched victory under the banner of the Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party.

From 2005 until his demise, Ansari found himself ensconced within the precincts of various penitentiaries in UP and Punjab. The annals chronicled 28 criminal cases against him, including charges of homicide, alongside seven cases under UP’s Gangster Act since 2005.

Since September 2022, he incurred conviction in eight criminal cases and faced trial in 21 disparate judicial forums. Recently, he received a life sentence and a punitive fine from Varanasi MP/MLA earlier this month, stemming from an episode of illicitly procuring an arms license approximately 37 years ago.

This marked the eighth instance of conviction within the preceding 18 months, with the second instance culminating in a life sentence.

On December 15, 2023, a Varanasi MP/MLA court meted out a sentence of five years and six months for issuing a death threat to Mahavir Prasad Rungta, a pivotal witness in a case involving the abduction and slaying of BJP luminary and coal magnate Nand Kishore Rungta on January 22, 1997.

On October 27, 2023, a Ghazipur MP/MLA court doled out a sentence of ten years of rigorous imprisonment and levied a fine of 5 lakh in a case under the Gangster Act registered against him in 2010.

Similarly, on June 5, 2023, a Varanasi MP/MLA adjudged life imprisonment to Ansari for his involvement in the assassination of Awadesh Rai, the elder sibling of erstwhile Congress MLA and incumbent UP Congress head, Ajay Rai.

The fatal fusillade transpired on August 3, 1991, when Awadesh Rai and his sibling Ajay stood poised outside their abode in the Lahurabir enclave of Varanasi.

On April 29, 2023, the Ghazipur MP/MLA court decreed ten years’ imprisonment in connection to the assassination of BJP MLA Krishnanand Rai. Notably, the Lucknow bench of Allahabad high court, on September 23, 2022, meted out a five-year prison term in a Gangster Act case registered in 1999 at Hazratganj Police Station in Lucknow, accompanied by a financial penalty.

On December 15, 2022, the Ghazipur MP/MLA court sentenced him to ten years’ imprisonment and imposed a fine of 5 lakh each in two discrete cases of the Gangster Act, dated 1996 and 2007.

His initial conviction in the bygone 13 months transpired under the aegis of the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court. The verdict, pronounced on September 21, 2022, mandated a seven-year custodial term for his transgression against the jailor of the Lucknow district penitentiary in 2003.

The Uttar Pradesh government resorted to legal recourse, beseeching the Supreme Court to repatriate Ansari from Ropar jail in Punjab. Ansari, hitherto a BSP MLA, found himself interned in Ropar jail in January 2019, embroiled in an extortion imbroglio, enduring a protracted stint exceeding two years.

In March 2021, amidst adjudicating the petition proffered by the UP government, the SC directed the Punjab administration to surrender Ansari’s custody to UP, decrying the pretext of medical exigency as a ruse to obfuscate justice.

Furthermore, the court decreed that a convict or a detainee who flouts the statutes of the land forfeits the prerogative to contest his relocation from one detention facility to another, emphasizing that the judiciary ought not to be mere spectators when the edifice of law is assailed with impunity.