Mukhtar Ansari claims threat to his life in jail

Jailed Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) MLA Mukhtar Ansari has told a court that a contract of Rs 5 crore has been given for his killing inside the jail.

According to his lawyer, Ansari claimed that unauthorised people entered the prison without making any entry in the register.

Ansari, who is lodged in Uttar Pradesh's Banda jail, was produced virtually on Monday before Maushmi Madhesi, a judge in the special court for cases involving MPs and MLAs here in Uttar Pradesh, in a case of forgery and cheating.

The forgery and cheating case against Ansari was registered after it was found that a bulletproof ambulance with a Barabanki registration number was used to ferry him from the Ropar jail to a Mohali court in Punjab in an extortion case.

His lawyer Randhir Singh Suman, Ansari told the judge that a contract of Rs 5 crore has been given for killing him inside the jail.

Ansari also alleged that some suspicious persons entered the jail without making any entry in the register and that the directions of CCTV cameras were changed to facilitate their visits.

The MLA requested the court to order a probe into the matter.

The court has fixed the next date of the hearing in the case on August 27.

After having been brought from the Ropar jail in Punjab in April, Ansari has been lodged in the Banda jail as an undertrial in a slew of criminal cases.