Uttar Pradesh gangster-turned politician Mukhtar Ansari’s alleged henchman Ajit Singh was shot dead and his associate Mohar Singh was critically injured along with a passer-by, when three unidentified motorcycle borne assailants opened indiscriminate fire on a sports utility vehicle (SUV) near Kathauta crossing under Vibhuti Khand police station limits in Lucknow’s Gomtinagar on Wednesday night, police officials said.
Lucknow commissioner of police DK Thakur, who rushed to the spot with a huge force in view of panic in the area after the murder, said Ajit Singh was the husband of a former block pramukh of Gahona in Mau district’s Mahmudabad.
Thakur said Ajit Singh was a key witness in the murder of former MLA Simpu Singh and was believed to be a close aide of Mukhtar Ansari.
He said Singh had an old enmity with two musclemen of Azamgarh, Akhand Singh and Kuntoo Singh. Moreover, he himself was named in nearly 19 criminal cases, including five murder cases. He was asked to leave Mau district by the district magistrate last month, the police said.
Thakur further said Singh and his associate were having snacks nearly 50 metres from Kathauta crossing when the assailants opened fire on him.
He added that eyewitnesses claimed Singh and his aide opened retaliatory fire and it was suspected that the assailants could have been injured in the shoot-out.
Singh is the fourth Mukhtar Ansari aide to be killed in the past four years.
Ansari’s close aide Prem Prakash Singh alias Munna Bajrangi’s brother-in-law, Pushpjeet Singh, was murdered along with his friend Sanjay Mishra, in a sensational shootout in Vikas Nagar here on March 5, 2016. Pushpajeet used to look after the financial affairs of the Bajrangi group and acted as Bajrangi’s legal advisor for pending criminal cases.
Bajrangi’s another close aide Mohd Tariq was shot dead on a flyover near Dayal Paradise crossing in Gomtinagar on December 2, 2017. Tariq, a Varanasi- based contractor, was looking after the gang’s finances after Pushpjeet’s murder.
Bajrangi himself was murdered inside Baghpat jail, allegedly by west UP gangster Sunil Rathi, on July 9, 2018.
By Hindustan Times
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