By Sharat Pradhan, Lucknow: Even as the Uttar Pradesh police claim to have launched a manhunt for dreaded mafia don Mukhtar Ansari, who was charged with inciting last week's communal violence in the eastern town of Mau, the independent legislator has said he was not guilty.
Interestingly, while the cops were on a wild goose chase, Ansari was meeting all and sundry, particularly the media.
In a telephonic interview, he told IANS: "This is an absolutely baseless charge. I don't mind being accused of a crime, but even in my wildest dreams, I cannot imagine myself inciting communal violence."
Police have charged Ansari not only for inciting last week's communal violence in Mau, near Varanasi, that left seven people dead and 33 injured but also for murdering the first riot victim.
However, Ansari demanded a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the incident, saying: "Only if the government orders a CBI inquiry, the real culprits will stand exposed and my stand will be vindicated."
He claimed: "I am being framed by vested interests who feel threatened by the mass support I enjoy in this region. But what has hurt me most is the fact that Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav has buckled under the Bharatiya Janata Party's pressure to get me arrested."
Asked whether he had spoken to the chief minister, whose government he supports, Ansari said: "No, but I can assure you that he will regret his decision in the next elections."
Seeing a conspiracy behind his arrest, he did not rule out some kind of collusion between the BJP and the ruling Samajwadi Party leaders.
"While BJP leaders have always been my foes, even the local Samajwadi Party leaders don't relish my popularity, that is why they thought of framing me in the murder of some innocent person who was killed on the first day of the violence", he said.
"I want to know why the police took four days to name me if their allegations about my going on a killing spree with my gun in an open jeep were true?" Ansari asked.
The mafia don turned politician, who has some 36 criminal cases pending against him and was once convicted under the anti-terrorist law TADA, added: "I have won with very large margins in successive elections in Uttar Pradesh. Obviously I have a large support base among Hindus, so why should I incite a communal riot?"
A police official, who had earlier served in Ansari's constituency, confirmed his claims.
"It is true that Ansari would be the last one to incite communal violence; he is not a communal man," he said. "I know from my own experience that not only does Ansari have a good following among Hindus but also that a large chunk of his henchmen are Hindus," the cop added.
