UP: After Lucknow, Mukhtar Ansari’s properties razed in Mau

VARANASI: A day after two houses built illegally by jailed mafia don-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari’s family were razed in Lucknow, properties worth several crores of rupees of the don and his henchmen were bulldozed in Mau Kotwali area on Friday.
Mau district magistrate Gyan Prakash Tripathi told TOI that besides a four-storeyed building where an illegal slaughterhouse was being run and three godowns were demolished. The slaughterhouse was closed for the past one year.
On Thursday, two multi-storey houses of Mukhtar’s family were razed in Lucknow. Earlier on August 20, the police confiscated properties worth over Rs. 26 lakh of Mukhtar’s aide and gangster Mohammad Salim in Varanasi and Chandauli districts.
Besides, the Mau district administration and police ensured cancellation of five arms licenses of Mukhtar’s henchmen while order for jilabadar (externment) of three was also issued on August 17. Later, 12 more aides were issued orders of ‘jilabadar’ on August 26.
Major crackdown on the economic empire of Mukhtar gang had started from Mau district after May 31 costing over Rs 100 crores as the police tightened noose also in many districts including Ghazipur, Jaunpur, Azamgarh and Varanasi.
As per police records, value of movable and immovable properties of Mukhtar’s henchmen seized, government land freed from their possessions and constructions destroyed estimated above Rs 66 crores.
The income of Rs 41 crores per annum through illegal activities like extortion, monopoly in fish, coal and other traders had also been hit by police.
Also 72 arms licenses were cancelled or suspended while 71 arms were surrendered. As many as 96 members of the gang have been arrested while 75 of them were booked under Gangster Act. Seven persons involved in grabbing contracts in PWD, coal depots also fell in the police net.