UP under Yogi went big after mafias, crime, corruption

New Delhi, March 19 (IANS) The BJP government in Uttar Pradesh under Yogi Adityanath took massive steps against big mafias operating in the state like the Ateeq Ahmed and Mukhtar Ansari gangs in a bid to curb corruption and crime, says IANS C-Voter Report Card-UP 2021 survey.More than 15,700 people from Uttar Pradesh participated in the poll between March 8 and March 15, ajust ahead of the Yogi government completing four years on Friday.Of these people, 54.9 per cent said that the action against big mafias like Ahmed and Ansari can be called “strict action against corruption and crime”. The people were replying to the query: “How do you see the action against big mafias like Atik Ahmed and Mukhtar Ansari?”.Around 23 per cent said these actions were “revenge politics”, while 22.1 per cent said they “can’t say”. The Yogi government came to power in 2017.Lodged in jails outside the state, Ahmed and Ansari — the once-feared gangsters — are now mere spectators to the gradual implosion of their empires they built using the unholy nexus of crime and politics, dominating Uttar Pradesh using money and muscle power. Their fiefdom invoked fear among commoners and their names inspired awe among followers. But all that is in the past.As many as 19.8 per cent people said they “can’t say” exactly what the Yogi government has achieved.Those who took part in the survey are supporters of the ruling BJP, Congress, Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party and other regional parties who voted during the last Assembly elections in the state.Ahmed, 58, is said to have committed his first murder in 1979. A five-time legislator and a one-time parliamentarian, Ahmed has 96 criminal cases against him including murder, abductions, illegal mining, extortion, intimidation and fraud, among others.He started calling the shots in the Allahabad (now Prayagraj) region after the death of his rival, Shaukat Ilahi, in a police encounter in 1989. Ahmed made his debut in politics the same year, winning the Allahabad West assembly seat as an Independent candidate. In 2003, Ahmed returned to the Samajwadi Party. In 2004, he became a parliamentarian from the Phulpur Lok Sabha constituency, a seat once held by India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.Ahmed’s downfall began in 2007 during the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP)’s rule, when police mounted pressure on him and his brother, Ashraf. They eventually surrendered in 2008, but were released in 2013, a year after the Samajwadi Party came back to power.Ahmed was arrested in February 2017 from the Naini area in Prayagraj in connection with an attack on employees of a state university. The action came after the Allahabad High Court pulled up the police for their failure to arrest him.The Prayagraj district administration recently ordered the attachment of seven of his immovable properties worth around Rs 60 crore. Another 17 properties have been identified for action even as 16 firms linked to Ahmed and his gang are under scrutiny.A BSP legislator, Ansari has been lodged in a jail in Punjab’s Ropar since January 2019; his reign in eastern Uttar Pradesh is all but over. At the dawn of the 1990s, Ansari, who was involved in property business and contract work, began expanding his network in the world of crime. In November 2005, he was linked to the murder of BJP legislator Krishnanad Rai.In 2009, Ansari, who faces 48 FIRs including 10 murder cases, was again named in the killing of Ajai Prakash Singh, a contractor, in Mau. He successfully contested his first assembly election on a BSP ticket from the Mau seat in 1996. Denied the party’s ticket in 2002, he contested as an Independent and won the seat in 2002. He retained his seat as an Independent in 2007. In January 2019, he was arrested for allegedly making an extortion call to a Mohali-based builder, who lodged a case. Ansari was arrested in that case and shifted to Punjab’s Ropar jail from Banda, where he was incarcerated in March 2017 in a separate case.In May 2020, police stepped up operations against Ansari and his gang. Seventy-two arms licenses linked to him and his accomplices were suspended, properties worth Rs 66 crore seized, and an extortion racket that supplied crores of rupees annually to Ansari and his associates was busted.–IANSrak/in