Abbas Ansari disqualified from UP Assembly after conviction in hate speech case
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Lucknow (PTI): UP MLA Abbas Ansari, son of gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari has been disqualified as a member of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly after he was convicted in a hate speech case, official sources said on Sunday.
Abbas Ansari was MLA from Mau assembly constituency. The seat has now been declared vacant, the sources told PTI.
Abbas Ansari, the Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) MLA, was sentenced to two years imprisonment in a 2022 hate speech case by a special MP-MLA court on Saturday.
According to the prosecution, during the last assembly elections, Abbas Ansari, who was contesting as an SBSP candidate from the Mau Sadar seat, had threatened the Mau administration during a public meeting at Paharpur ground on March 3, 2022, saying he will "settle scores and teach them a lesson" after the elections.
Defence lawyer Daroga Singh told PTI videos that Ansari was booked under Indian Penal Code sections 189 (threat to cause harm to public servant), 153-A (promoting enmity between different groups on the basis of religion, caste, place of birth, residence and language and spoiling the harmony), 171F (undue influence in election) and 506 (criminal intimidation).
Singh said after hearing both sides, special MP/MLA court Judge K P Singh convicted Abbas Ansari on Saturday and sentenced him to two years each under sections 189 and 153-A, one year under section 506 and six months imprisonment under section 171-F. All the sentences will run simultaneously. Ansari has also been fined Rs 2,000.
Under the Representation of the People Act, there is a provision to terminate the membership of the legislative house if the court sentences a member to two years or more.
Abbas Ansari became MLA for the first time in 2022 by winning the election from the Mau Sadar assembly seat on an SBSP ticket under the Samajwadi Party-led alliance.
SBSP is currently an ally of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition government and the party president is a cabinet minister in the state.
Before that, Abbas Ansari's father, politician Mukhtar Ansari, represented the Mau Sadar assembly seat for a long time.
Mukhtar Ansari, who was incarcerated in Banda district jail, died of a cardiac arrest at a hospital in Uttar Pradesh in March 2024.
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Man arrested with Rs 2.54-crore heroin in Mumbai
Mumbai (PTI): Police have arrested a man and seized over 500 grams of heroin worth Rs 2.54 crore in the illicit market from him in Mumbai, officials said on Friday.
The police's Anti-Narcotics Cell (ANC) made the drug seizure in Santacruz in the western suburbs. The operation was conducted by the Kandivali unit of the ANC on Thursday as part of a special crackdown against drug trafficking in the area, they said.
Acting on specific inputs, an ANC team conducted a raid in Santacruz (East) and intercepted a man. During a search, the team recovered 508 grams of high-grade heroin from his possession, an official said.
The seized contraband, a highly addictive, opioid drug derived from morphine, is estimated to be worth Rs 2.54 crore in the international market, he informed.
Following the seizure, a case was registered against the man under relevant sections of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985, and he was formally placed under arrest in the early hours of Friday.
The police are currently investigating the source of the drug and trying to identify the intended recipients of the consignment, he said.
