MUKHTAR’S ALLEGED AIDE SHOT DEAD IN LKO, 2 OTHERS CRITICALLY HURT

LUCKNOW : In a suspected fallout of a gangwar, an alleged henchman of gangster-turnedpolitician Mukhtar Ansari, Ajit Singh, was shot dead while his associate Mohar Singh and a passer-by delivery boy were critically injured 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 also a key witness in the murder of former MLA Simpu Singh, as well as being an alleged close aide of Mukhtar Ansari.

He said Ajit Singh had old enmity with two musclemen of Azamgarh, Akhand Singh and Kuntoo Singh. Moreover, he himself had nearly 19 criminal cases, including five murders against him. 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 said Singh and his aide also opened fire with their pistols

and it was suspected that the assailants were injured in the retaliatory firing.

It is the fourth murder of Mukhtar Ansari’s aides 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 a legal advisor in pursuing pending criminal cases against him in courts.

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- basedcontractor, was looking after the gang’s finances after the murder of Pushpjeet.

Bajrangi himself was murdered inside Baghpat jail allegedly by west UP gangster Sunil Rathi on July 9, 2018.