Top Punjab cops in fresh trouble for shielding don Mukhtar Ansari from UP police

Chandigarh: Top officials of the Punjab police are in a fix as Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann has asked them to disclose the names of all those officers responsible for helping don Mukhtar Ansari escape jail in UP by keeping him unnecessarily in Ropar jail after registering a “flimsy” extortion case, during the erstwhile Congress regime.

Venu Parsad, Principal Secretary to CM Mann on August 5 wrote to the Principal Secretary, Department of Home, Anurag Verma, asking him to get a detailed report about retaining Mukhtar Ansari in Punjab even as more than 12 far more serious cases were pending against him in his home state, Uttar Pradesh.

Venu Parsad told indianarrative.com that the CM’s office to date did not receive any reply from the Department of Home despite three months having elapsed since the letter was sent.

Venu wrote, quoting the CM, “The office note does not provide the names of the officers/officials who are associated with the subject matter. Given this, the Director General of the Police Punjab may be asked to depute a senior level officer, not below the rank of ADGP to enquire into this matter and submit his report.”

The CM’s letter emanated based on a writ petition of 2020 titled “State of Uttar Pradesh Vs Jail Superintendent (Ropar) and others.” In this petition filed in the Supreme Court by the Yogi Aditiya Nath-led UP government, it was prayed that the Punjab government may be directed to send Mukhtar Ansari to UP as trial and investigations into various heinous crimes committed by the gangster were pending in the state.

Finally, the Apex Court, despite resistance from the Punjab government, ordered the handing over of Ansari to UP till the completion of the trials of heinous crimes. It is after this, his trial in Homeland Heights extortion call matter could begin in Punjab.

The Ropar jail officers had been repeatedly refusing to honour summons and production warrants issued by UP courts seeking Ansari’s presence. It was argued that an investigation was continuing in connection with an FIR registered at the behest of Homeland Heights builder, Umang Jindal alleging that Ansari had telephoned him to pay up Rs 5 crore or otherwise he would be killed.

Forwarding the directions of the CM, Principal Secretary (Home) wrote to the DGP on October 20 telling him to submit a report within 2 weeks. As the report was not received in the stipulated time, a demi-official (DO) letter was written early this week to the DGP’s office. Till Friday no reply was received, sources revealed.

Even Punjab Chief Secretary V K Janjua had noted on file questioning the payment of over Rs 80 lakhs to Delhi lawyers engaged to contest the petition filed by the UP government seeking custody of the gangster lodged in Punjab’s Ropar jail.

Janjua told this reporter that he had objected to the expenditure incurred on legal help taken “unnecessarily” when there was no need to retain Ansari in Punjab. The sections of the IPC under which police booked him were not as serious as faced by him in UP.

It is learnt that the Mohali police had hurriedly filed a ‘challan’ in the court of the Chief Judicial Magistrate under the apparent pressure of the petition in the Supreme Court. After handing over Ansari to UP, the trial in Mohali court has come to a standstill.

Inquiries with the court officials revealed that the police file was missing from the records of the Naib Court (police personnel deputed to assist the public prosecutor and the court). Though the judicial file was present in the records of the judge.

Sources said that the file was taken away as senior police officers wanted to study the ‘challan’ presented by their predecessors allegedly under political pressure from the Congress regime. As there was not much verifiable evidence against Ansari that could stand judicial scrutiny, it is now being considered that the FIR should be cancelled.