Roperties of gangsters orth over Rs 1,800 cr ttached in UP: Police
In a bid to break the s of gangsters, the Uttar Prapolice have attached or olished their ill-gotten props worth over Rs 1,800 crore e state. a special campaign from l 2017 till July 2021, 13,801 s were lodged under the gster Act and 43,294 sed arrested while the onal Security Act (NSA) was ked against 630 people, tional director general of ce (ADG), law and order, hant Kumar told PTI. n the campaign, we have hed or demolished ill-gotproperties of criminals h Rs 1,848 crore. This is a rd as such action has never taken before,” he said. ccording to section 14 of the gster Act, a district magiscan order the attachment of perty, movable or immovaf there is reason to believe it has been acquired by a ster as commission for an ce triable under this law. nder the provisions, the ed persons will be required ove to the administration their attached properties are not ill-gotten, and they need to present evidence for their claims. Asked about the opposition’s allegation that biased action was taken targeting a particular caste, the ADG asserted that the action was “unbiased and without any discrimination”. “In the state, 25 mafia were identified and action is being taken against them and their gang members to deter them from criminal activities and also give a message to those in the crime world,” he said.
Top among those against whom action was taken includes former MP Atiq Ahmad, BSP MLA Mukhtar Ansari, Sundar Bhati, Dhruv Kumar Singh alias Kuntu Singh, Kumar said.
Acting against Ahmad, who is lodged in Gujarat’s Sabarmati prison, police have arrested 89 members of his gang, and properties worth Rs 325 crore were seized, demolished and freed from his grab. Arms licences of 60 members of his gang were also cancelled, the officer said.
In BSP legislator Ansari’s case, who is lodged in Banda prison, the police attached properties worth Rs 194 crore, and action was taken against 244 gang members, the officer said.
Arms licences of 122 gang members were cancelled, while 158 were arrested, he added.
Similarly, in the action against Bhati, a gangster of western UP currently lodged in Sonbhadra prison, the police attached properties worth over Rs 63 crores and four arms licences of his gang members were cancelled, Kumar said. In the case of Kuntu Singh, who is lodged in Ballia prison, the police attached or demolished properties worth over Rs 17.91 crores, he said.
The ADG said the police were also trying to effectively pursue the cases against such elements in courts. Many hardened criminals, including Lucknow’s Om Prakash Srivastava, Muzaffarnagar’s Sanjeev Maheshwari alias Jeeva and Gautam Buddh Nagar’s Sunder Bhati and Singhraj Bhati were awarded life imprisonment by courts due to effective perusal of their case by the police, the officer said.