A court here on Thursday remanded Nikhat Bano, the wife of Uttar Pradesh MLA Abbas Ansari, in police custody for three days.
Nikhat Bano was arrested on February 10 for illegally meeting her jailed husband in the deputy jailer’s room in Chitrakoot district.
The jail superintendent and seven other staff members were suspended for laxity and departmental action was initiated against them.
Lokesh Varun, the special judge of the court hearing cases lodged under the Prevention of Corruption Act, sent Nikhat Bano to police custody for three days. Her driver Niyaj Ahmad, another accused in the case, was remanded in police custody for five days.
Hearing the matter through video-conferencing, the court said the remand period would begin from 10 am on Friday.
Investigating officer Harsh Pandey had moved an application seeking police remand of both the accused.
The court was told that the two were arrested from the jail compound in Chitrakoot.
The court was also told that Nikhat Bano had kept her iPhone locked and it was necessary to unlock it so that relevant information could be collected.
It was also stated that Ahmad had not handed over his mobile phone to police and it was necessary to trace the phone to ascertain the involvement of others.
Abbas Ansari, the Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) MLA from Mau and son of jailed gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari, has been in prison for the last three months in connection with a money-laundering case.
Apart from her mobile phone, many “objectionable” articles were found from Nikhat Bano’s possession, police had said.
On the basis of a complaint from Sub-Inspector in-charge of the Ragauli Jail police station Shyamdev Singh, an FIR was lodged against five people — Nikhat Bano, Ahmad, Jail Superintendent Ashok Sagar, the deputy jailor and a constable.
They were booked under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), including 222 (intentional omission to apprehend on the part of public servant bound to apprehend person under sentence or lawfully committed), 186 (voluntarily obstructing a public servant in the discharge of his public functions), 506 (criminal intimidation), 201, which deals with tampering with evidence, and 120B (criminal conspiracy).
Police had also seized Saudi Arabian currency from Nikhat Bano.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had arrested Abbas Ansari (30) in November last year after a long questioning session at the federal agency’s office in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh.
