New Delhi: The Supreme Court said the country’s Prime Minister Indira Gandhi could not be protected as her own security guards killed her, while refusing to entertain a plea for shifting gangster-politician Mukhtar Ansari lodged in Banda jail outside Uttar Pradesh, especially to a non-BJP ruled state.
A bench comprising justices Hrishikesh Roy and Sandeep Mehta was hearing a plea by Umar Ansari, Mukhtar Ansari’s son, claiming that his father has received reliable information that his life is in grave danger and there is a conspiracy afoot involving several actors within the state establishment to assassinate him in Banda jail in Uttar Pradesh. Umar sought a direction to transfer his father from Banda jail to any jail outside Uttar Pradesh in a state ruled by any party other than the BJP.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing Umar Ansari, submitted that the petitioner's father was an accused in the murder case of BJP MLA Krishnanand Rai and all the accused were acquitted in the case. Sibal cited the April 15 killings of former MP Atiq Ahmad and his ex-MLA brother Khalid Azim alias Ashraf, to point out the threat perception for Ansari, who was shifted from Punjab to Banda jail.
The apex court told Sibal that the order for security has already been provided by the high court. "You know our Prime Minister (Indira Gandhi) could not be protected as her own security guards killed her," the bench said. Sibal insisted that there was a genuine threat perception in his case. However, the bench was not convinced.
The apex court allowed the petitioner to amend the prayer in the petition, after additional solicitor general (ASG) K M Nataraj objected to it and asked the court to just look at the plea made in the writ petition. The apex court allowed amendment to the prayer in the writ petition and fixed the matter for consideration on Friday.
Umar’s plea contended that anti-social elements in the state have been emboldened enough to commit murders within full public view and moreover, on live television, in the presence of media and the police such as in the case of Atiq Ahmad. “It is clear that there is an emerging pattern in these custodial killings where persons belonging to the political opposition are the main targets”, said the plea.
Umar’s plea claimed that he is concerned for his father’s life and he has been constrained to approach the apex court with the sole aim of protecting the life of his father. “As per the information received from reliable sources within the police establishment, the persons who have been hired to assassinate the Petitioner’s father shall be arrested by the police or summoned on remand in some petty crime, produced before the court and then remanded to judicial custody. Then, they shall be taken to Banda Jail where the Petitioner’s father is currently lodged”, said the plea.
“This shall give the said persons the desired proximity to the Petitioner’s father. Thereafter, these hired killers will be provided access to arms inside jail and an opportunity by way of a lapse in security systems that they can take advantage of through complicit jail officials. The standard mode of operation is to give the attack the color of a fight between the inmates in order to give the entire incident the misleading cover of a ‘gang-war’”, added the plea.
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Mukhtar Ansari's son moves SC fearing threat to his father's life
