"Mulayam govt wanted to save Mukhtar Ansari at any cost": Ex-DSP recalls how he was forced to resign in 2004

The dreaded gangster was brought to the hospital around 8:25 PM, according to the official release from the hospital. A team of nine doctors attended to him before he died, the release added. Notably, he was admitted to a hospital in Uttar Pradesh's Banda after he complained of abdominal pain. He was then shifted to Uttar Pradesh's Rani Durgawati Medical College after his discharge on Tuesday.

8 convictions against mafia don

The latest conviction of Mukhtar Ansari was this March 13 when he was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Varanasi MP/MLA court in a case related to usage of forged documents for obtaining an arms licence in 1990. This was the eighth case in which Ansari was convicted and sentenced by a UP court in the last two years. The other seven are as follows-

1. In December last year, Ansari was sentenced to five-years-six-months in jail in a 26-year-old case for threatening to kill a businessman in Varanasi.

2. On October 10, 2023, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison in a Gangsters Act case lodged in 2010 in Ghazipur.

3. On June 5, 2023, he was sentenced to life imprisonment in a murder and rioting case in Varanasi from 1991.

4. On April 29, 2023, he was sentenced to 10 years in jail in a Gangsters Act case in connection with the murder of then BJP MLA Krishnand Rai in 2005.

Also Read: Gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari sentenced to 10-year imprisonment in murder case

5. On December 15, 2022, Ansari was sentenced to 10 years in prison in a Gangsters Act case from 1996 lodged in Ghazipur and slapped a penalty of 5 lakh each in two separate cases of Gangster Act lodged against him in 1996 and 2007.

6 On September 23, 2022, Ansari was sentenced to five years in jail in a Gangsters Act case lodged in Lucknow’s Hazratganj police station in 1999.

7. On September 21, 2022, Ansari was sentenced to seven years in jail in a 2003 case for threatening the jailor of the Lucknow district jail in 2003. He was sentenced under IPC sections 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace) and 506 (criminal intimidation).

"Mulayam govt wanted to save him at any cost"

Former DSP Shailendra Singh who was in charge of the Varanasi unit of the Special Task Force (STF) of Uttar Pradesh had to resign as an officer of the UP Police in 2004. The DySP had raided the premises of Mukhtar Ansari in January 2004 and had recovered banned LMG (light machine gun) just before the assassination of BJP MLA Krishnand Rai and six others. The DySP had then filed an FIR and slapped POTA on the mafia don. However, he was forced to resign after the then Mulayam Singh Yadav put pressure to withdraw the case against the gangster.

After Ansari's death, he has exposed the Mulayam Singh government. "20 years ago, in 2004, Mukhtar Ansari's empire was at its peak. He would move around in open jeeps in areas where curfew was imposed. That time I recovered a Light Machine Gun, no recovery was made before or after that. I even imposed POTA on him...But the Mulayam government wanted to save him at any cost," said former DSP Shailendra Singh.

"He pressurised officials, IG-Range, DIG, and SP-STF were transferred, even I was made to resign within 15 days. But in my resignation, I wrote my reasons and put it before the people that this is the government you chose, which is protecting and working on the orders of mafias... I wasn't doing a favour to anyone. It was my duty...," Shailendra Singh added.


His paternal grandfather, Mukhtar Ahmed Ansari, was a freedom fighter and a president of the Congress. One of the founders of the Jamia Millia Islamia University, he remained its Chancellor from 1928 until his death in 1936.

Mukhtar Ansari was also related to Mohammad Usman, a Brigadier who was killed in action during the Indo-Pak war in 1948 and was posthumously awarded the Maha Vir Chakra.