UP Police takes custody of gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari from Punjab's Rupnagar jail amid heavy security

Chandigarh: The Uttar Pradesh Police on Tuesday took custody of jailed gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari at Punjab’s Rupnagar jail to transfer him to Banda prison. Ansari, BSP MLA from Uttar Pradesh’s Mau, is facing 52 cases in the state and elsewhere, and 15 of them are in the trial stage. Punjab Additional Director General of Police (Prisons), Praveen Kumar Sinha, told PTI that the custody of Ansari has been handed over to the Uttar Pradesh Police. Ansari, who has been lodged in the Rupnagar jail since January 2019 in connection with an extortion case, was taken in an ambulance, jail officials said. Earlier, Uttar Pradesh Police vehicles, an ambulance and a Vajra reached Rupnagar jail at around 12 noon. Uttar Pradesh Police personnel reached Rupnagar district on Tuesday to bring back Ansari. Heavy security arrangements were made by the Punjab Police outside the Rupnagar jail. Barricades were also put by the police on the road leading to the jail. The Supreme Court had directed the Punjab government to handover the custody of Ansari to the Uttar Pradesh Police, saying it was being denied on trivial grounds under the guise of medical issues. It had also said that a convict or an under-trial prisoner, who disobeys the law of the land, cannot oppose his transfer from one prison to another and the courts are not to be helpless bystanders when the rule of law is being challenged with impunity.