Chandigarh/Lucknow/Jhansi: The Ropar jail authorities on Tuesday afternoon handed over the custody of gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari to a contingent of UP Police that reached there in the morning. The convoy carrying BSP’s Mau MLA is likely to reach Banda jail by Wednesday morning.
The UP team, including two ASP rank officers, left Ropar jail around 2.15pm after a medical examination of Ansari, who is facing various criminal cases in UP courts. On March 26, the Supreme Court had ordered Punjab to hand over Ansari’s custody to the UP police within two weeks. Ansari was brought to Ropar jail on production warrant in 2019 in a case of extortion and has been here ever since.
Senior police officials in UP said Ansari has been accommodated with his wheelchair in the ambulance which is being escorted by six police vehicles and a Vajra Vahan. In Banda, security arrangements are well in place around the jail compound while police have been put on high alert in three adjoining districts: Hamirpur, Chitrakoot, and Mahoba. A police outpost and no-vehicle zone has been created outside the Banda jail. Fifteen jail warders along with 20 other jail personnel have been deployed at the Banda jail.
A special medical team has also been constituted by the Banda district hospital to attend to Mukhtar.
UP jail minister Jai Kumar Singh Jakki told reporters in Lucknow that additional CCTVs have been installed in Banda jail which will be monitored by jail headquarters from Lucknow. “Mukhtar will be lodged in the same barrack in which he was lodged last time before being shifted to Ropar jail,” he said.
Another team of Barabanki police also left Ropar on Monday night, after taking custody of the controversial ambulance bearing registration number UP AT 7171 from the Ropar court. Police had recovered the ambulance from Manali road in Ropar district on Sunday. The Barabanki police had registered an FIR in the case after the ambulance came into limelight the day it was used to ferry Ansari from Ropar jail to the Mohali court.