Afzal Ansari has been sentenced to four years in prison.
Hours after a court in Uttar Pradesh convicted jailed gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari in a kidnapping and murder case, and sentenced him to 10 years imprisonment, his brother, Bahujan Samaj Party MP Afzal Ansari, has also been convicted in the same 2007 Gangsters Act case and sentenced to four years in prison.
The MP MLA court also imposed a fine of Rs 5 lakh on Mukhtar Ansari and Rs 1 lakh on Afzal Ansari. The brothers were accused in a kidnapping and murder case pertaining to the killing of BJP MLA Krishnanand Rai.
With the conviction, Afzal Ansari is set to lose his Lok Sabha membership, as Parliament rules say any member sentenced to two years or more in prison is automatically disqualified. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi recently lost his MP status according to the same rule after he was convicted in a 2019 defamation case and sentenced to two years in jail.
Earlier today, the wife of late BJP MLA Krishnanand Rai, who was murdered in Ghazipur in 2005 allegedly by Mukhtar Ansari and his brother Afzal Ansari, said that the rule of the mafia has ended in Uttar Pradesh and that she has faith in the judiciary.
"I believe in the judiciary. Rule of Goondas, Mafias have ended (in the state)," Alka Rai said.