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Already facing a probe by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for alleged money laundering, more trouble is in store for don-turned-politician Bahujan Samaj Party MLA Mukhtar Ansari as the Barabanki police have chargesheeted him along with half-a-dozen of his cohorts in connection with the alleged use of fake documents to register an ambulance that was used to ferry him from a jail to a court in Mohali district of Punjab.
Ansari is presently lodged in the Banda district jail after he was transferred from the Punjab prison on Supreme Court's order.
“The chargesheet has been filed against Mukhtar Ansari and five others at a local court. All the accused are in jail,” disclosed Superintendent of Police of Barabanki, Yamuna Prasad, to media persons.
Besides Ansari, others chargesheeted in the case are Mau-based doctor Alka Rai, Dr Sheshnath Rai, Mohammad Syed Mujahid, Anand Yadav and Saleem.
The chargesheet has been filed under Indian Penal Code sections 419 (cheating by personation), 420 (forgery), 471 (fraudulently or dishonestly using documents as genuine), 467 (forgery of valuable security) and 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), apart from Section 7 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act.
Police said that they were conducting raids to trace three absconding accused -- Shahid, Surendra Sharma and Afroz -- and non-bailable warrants had been obtained against them.
In March this year, the UP Police began an inquiry into the ambulance after it came to light that the vehicle used to ferry Ansari to a Mohali court from Ropar jail in Punjab was carrying the registration number of Barabanki. In the preliminary probe, the police found that documents such as voter ID card and PAN card submitted for the registration of the ambulance were fake. A case was registered at the Kotwali police station in Barabanki against Ansari and his associates on April 2.
During investigation, police found that forged documents of Dr Alka Rai of Shyam Sanjeevani Hospital and Research Center in Mau were used for registering the vehicle. It also came to light that Ansari's associates Rajnath Yadav and Mujahid had gone to Dr Alka Rai to get her signatures on fake documents, police had said.
After the above findings, the Barabanki police went ahead with their arrests and other accused. In the meantime, a team also left for Punjab and seized the controversial ambulance and brought it here for further investigation. Last week, the sleuths of the Special Task Force (STF) arrested Salim, the driver of the ambulance which was used to ferry the gangster-turned-politician. Salim, a resident of Ghazipur, was arrested from Lucknow along with Mujahid, who is from Mau district.