Bihar: Gangster-turned-politician Anant Kumar Singh released on parole ahead of polling
Less than three months earlier, his wife, a Rashtriya Janata Dal MLA, voted in favour of the state’s ruling National Democratic Alliance during a trust vote.
Gangster-turned-politician Anant Kumar Singh was on Sunday released from jail on parole in Bihar, PTI reported. Singh walked out of jail less than three months after his wife, Rashtriya Janata Dal MLA Neelam Devi, voted in favour of the state’s National Democratic Alliance during a trust vote.
Singh was released a week ahead of the Lok Sabha elections in Bihar’s Munger constituency, slated for May 13. The gangster-turned-politician is a five-time former MLA from the Mokama Assembly constituency, which is part of the Munger parliamentary seat. He had won the Assembly polls in 2020 as a Rashtriya Janata Dal candidate.
In July 2022, Singh was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment by a Bihar court in a case from 2015 in which an AK-47 rifle, hand grenades and live cartridges were recovered from his home. He was then disqualified as an MLA, after which Neelam Devi won the bye-election from the seat on a Rashtriya Janata Dal ticket.
Singh was released on parole on Sunday for 15 days on the grounds of the “resolution of his ancestral land”, The Hindu reported. He had been lodged in Patna’s Beur central jail.
After the former MLA was freed, he went to the Sabneema village near the town of Barh in Patna district in a convoy of more...
