Chequered life of another don's fugitive wife in Uttar Pradesh

LUCKNOW: Uttar Pradesh police recently announced a cash reward of Rs 75,000 on any information leading to the arrest of Afshan Ansari, wife of don-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari.
The elusive woman has a lot in common with the state's other most wanted woman, Shaista, wife of slain gangster Atiq Ahmed. According to police records, Afshan has nine FIRs, and she is a co-accused in a money laundering case under the PMLA registered by the Enforcement Directorate against Mukhtar Ansari in 2021.
Police officials said she has been running Mukhtar's inter-state gang ever since the don was jailed in 2005.
While Shaista, according to Prayagraj police, played a role in lawyer Umesh Pal's murder on February 24, Afshan, according to ED, has been charged with siphoning off crores of rupees collected as rent from illegally constructed properties on encroached government land in Mau. The ED sources added that benami property in the name of Ansari's wife has been traced. Last year, the probe agency had attached assets worth Rs 6.3 crore belonging to her.
Senior police officials who have worked on cases of Mukhtar said that in the last few years, Afshan's brother Atif Raza had started taking care of all her finances. "All the benami properties acquired and shell companies made were at the behest of Atif who is now languishing in jail," said a senior police officer.
According to ED sources, Ansari's wife is accused of furnishing forged papers for securing government contracts and an FIR was registered against her at Saidpur police station of Ghazipur district. A godown in Ghazipur's Dakshin Tola area was built in place of a pond on five bighas of land by one Vikas Constructions, in which Ansari's wife Afshan was an approver according to sources privy to the probe. ED sleuths claimed that Mukhtar Ansari's wife and her brothers are owners of the firm.
Police said other cases against Afshan are of trespassing, theft, forgery and cheating. Unlike Shaista, she is not directly involved in giving threats to businessmen and planning murders. She was married to Mukhtar Ansari in 1989.