Van Gogh painting fetches over $16mn

The Supreme Court on Friday directed the

Punjab government to hand over the custody of gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari, currently lodged in Rupnagar jail, to Uttar Pradesh Police within 14 days. Ansari, a BSP MLA from Mau constituency, is facing trial in 10 cases involving heinous crimes ranging from murder, extortion, cheating and fraud under the Gangster Act, in UP. In 2019, he was brought to Rupnagar jail in connection with an alleged extortion case in Mohali. The court’s directive came on a plea by the UP government seeking a direction to the Punjab government and Rupnagar jail authority to immediately hand over the custody of the legislator. The Yogi Adityanathled UP government had earlier contended that Ansari had been “dodging” the judicial system and was continuing with his alleged illegal activities from Rupnagar district.

A Vincent Van Gogh painting of a Paris street scene fetched €14 million ($16.47 million) at an auction on Thursday, only to be put back under the hammer and sold for a lower amount. Auction house Sotheby’s said there had been a glitch with its online bidding system during the first sale of the painting, which had been held in a private collection for more than a century. The painting “Street scene in Montmartre” received a highest bid of €11.25 million the second time around. With costs, it sold for €13.1 million. That exceeded the €5-8 million the auction house had estimated for the work, painted in 1887 while the artist was lodging with his brother Theo in Paris. The rarely seen painting depicts a man and woman strolling arm in arm past a ramshackle fence with a windmill in the background.