After the Yogi Adityanath government cracked down on mafia elements and razed their illegal properties across the state in recent weeks, don-turned-Bahujan Samaj Party MLA Mukhtar Ansari’s wife Afsa Ansari wrote to President Ram Nath Kovind, seeking security for her husband and her family.
In the letter that was released to the media by Afsa in Ghazipur on Monday, she apprised Kovind of Mukhtar Ansari’s background and claimed to be related to former Vice President Hamid Ansari, former Congress chief Dr Mukhtar Ansari, Brigadier Usman and freedom fighter Shaukatullah.
Afsa claimed that the official machinery was being misused against her family due to political rivalry and that she perceived threat to the lives of her husband Mukhtar Ansari and two sons Abbas and Umar, during the Bharatiya Janata Party regime.
She also appealed to the President to issue a directive that trial of all cases against her husband be held through video conferencing from Punjab, where he is doing time.
Afsa Ansari wrote the letter after the district authorities razed Hotel Gazal owned by her family in Ghazipur district on Sunday.
Earlier, a house owned by Abbas Ansari was also razed in Lucknow by the Lucknow Development Authority while properties and assets of supporters of Ansari were attached by the government.
On his part, Mukhtar Ansari, who is lodged in a Punjab jail, refused to appear in a UP court perceiving threat to his life while the wife of late BJP MLA Krishnanand Rai accused the Congress government of Punjab of patronising the don. Mukhtar is accused of eliminating Rai.