BSP MLA Mukhtar Ansari, his brother Afzal Ansari and several others were on Wednesday acquitted by a special CBI court in Delhi in the 2005 murder of BJP MLA Krishnanand Rai.
Besides the two Ansari brothers, gangster Munna Bajrangi who was killed inside Baghpat jail last year was also an accused. Another high profile gangster Sanjeev Maheshwari "Jeeva" has also been acquitted.
Special Judge Arun Bhardwaj exonerated all the accused in the case.
Krishnanand Rai, the sitting MLA from Mohammadabad Assembly constituency of Ghazipur district, was murdered along with six others in Ghazipur in November 2005. He was allegedly attacked by a group of shooters who ambushed his SUV and fired indiscriminately with AK-47 rifles.
The CBI later charged gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari, Munna Bajrangi among others. Ansari was already in jail at the time and it was alleged that he planned the murder from inside the jail.
The trial of the 2005 murder case was transferred from Ghazipur in Uttar Pradesh to Delhi by the Supreme Court in 2013 on a plea filed by Alka Rai, the wife of Krishnanand Rai.
Ansari, the MLA from Mau in Uttar Pradesh, has several criminal cases against him, including that of murder and abduction.
Ansari has been elected as MLA five times from the Mau Assembly constituency, with his first victory coming in 1996. He has also contested as an independent and under the banner of his own party Quami Ekta Dal. He merged his party with the BSP in 2017 and contested on its ticket.
While Mukhtar Ansari, a rival of Rai was accused of ordering the assassination, Munnai Bajrangi allegedly carried out the murder with the help of his associates.
Munna Bajrangi, one of the most high-profile gangsters of Eastern UP famous for using AK-47s, was arrested in 2009 in Mumbai after evading the law enforcement for over 20 years. In 1996, he allegedly murdered BJP leader Ramachandra Singh in Jaunpur and in 2003, he was accused of killing another BJP leader Anil Rai in Varanasi.
After his arrest, he reportedly confessed to killing over 50 people in the 20 years.
CBI had declared a reward of Rs 5 lakh for his arrest in the Krishnanad Rai murder case. While the Uttar Pradesh had also put Rs 2 lakh for his involvement in cases related to murder, extortion, robbery, abduction and arms act.
