Anand Sen Yadav is an Indian criminal-politician from the Bahujan Samaj Party, currently representing the Milkipur constituency in the Uttar Pradesh legislative assembly. He was a minister in Mayawati's cabinet, but resigned after being arrested for the murder of Shashi Prasad, a woman with whom he may have been having an affair in Faizabad.[1]
He is the son of Mitra Sen Yadav, a gangster who joined Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party and became Member of the 14th Lok Sabha from Faizabad. Mitra Sen Yadav is currently being investigated in the human trafficking scam along with Babulal Katara. Anand first won the 2002 elections from Milkipur, with the Samajwadi Party. However, he lost the Indian general elections, 2004 by 30,000 votes.[2]
Meanwhile, he had been indicted in more than ten criminal cases including murder, assault, and extortion,[3] and fought the Uttar Pradesh state assembly elections, 2007 from jail. He won from Milkipur, and was appointed Minister of State for food processing in Mayawati's cabinet.
However, he was in jail during the swearing-in ceremony, and a court refused him leave since he was there on "serious criminal charges" (kidnapping and murder).[4] Eventually, a second ceremony was held for him.[3]
Shashi Prasad, 24 year old daughter of BSP party worker Yogendra Prasad and a third-year law student, apparently had a relationship with Anand Sen and may have become pregnant.[1] She may have been pressing him to marry her.[5] On October 22, 2007, she went missing after having been seen with Anand Sen's driver, Vijay Sen, who is also a relative of Anand Sen.
When Shashi's father Yogendra Prasad went to the police naming Anand Sen for kidnapping Sashi, the police refused to take cognizance of the case. It was only a few weeks later, after Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav brought up the case in the state legislature, that a police case was filed. Owing to Anand Sen's clout with the state police, the case was sought to be investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation,[6] but this did not happen.
During the investigation, Vijay Sen apparently confessed that Shashi was strangulated by Bullan Yadav, a criminal from Sultanpur.[7] Later, he pushed her body off a bridge into the Gomti river. However, Vijaysen has also made conflicting statements.[8]
Based on this confession, the river was searched and though her body could not be found, a wrist watch, identified as belonging to her, was recovered from the river.[9]
Anand Sen was forced to resign his ministerial position, and after some months on the run,[9] he was arrested in 2008. Recently, Yogendra Prasad has moved the Supreme Court of India claiming that material evidence has been destroyed by the state police and that the case be handed over to the CBI.[5]