Dramatic Visuals Surface As Taiwan Rocked By 'Strongest Earthquake in 25 Years'

  A sitting MP’s convoy under attack; first stones come raining, next come the petrol bombs, followed by gunfire. The lawmaker’s security men fire back. An IPS officer rushes to the site in a chopper with an AK-47 rifle to handle the situation and join the search operation. The MP is safely evacuated. This might easily be a sequence from an OTT show based in the heartland. But the events unfolded in reality in 2008 when Yogi Adityanath, then MP from Gorakhpur, had a narrow escape after his convoy was attacked allegedly by the Mukhar Ansari gang. The dust is coming off of several episodes like this one with the death of gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari. The five-time MLA from Mau Sadar seat was behind bars since 2005, and had over 60 criminal cases pending against him. He was lodged in the Banda Jail when his health deteriorated and he was rushed to hospital but died during treatment. He was laid to rest amid heavy security presence in Ghazipur’s Mohammadabad Darzi Tola on Saturday.   Speaking to News18, retired IPS officer Brij Lal who was then ADG Law and Order, recounted details of the September 7, 2008 attack on Adityanath’s convoy in Azamgarh in which one person was killed and six others were injured. The 1977 batch officer said he had to be airdropped from the chopper along with the AK-47 rifle. The story, however, goes back to 2005, when communal riots broke out in Mau. “During this time, the five-time MLA and mafia-turned politician whose name cropped up for inciting the riots in Mau was seen waving an AK-47 from an open jeep,” Brij Lal said. Yogi Adityanath, who was Gorakhpur MP then, himself headed to Mau, but was not allowed to enter the district. He was stopped at Dohrighat and sent back to Gorakhpur. Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav was the Chief Minister then.