Basti (UP), Dec 8 : A five-member team under the supervision of circle officer, Basti Sadar, has been formed for the arrest of former Uttar Pradesh minister Amar Mani Tripathi in a 22-year-old kidnapping case. The move by the superintendent of police (SP) of Basti comes amid the growing pressure of MP/MLA court (chief judicial magistrate), Basti, for the arrest and confiscation of property of the former minister. Gopal Krishna, SP, Basti, confirmed that the team comprising circle officer, in-charge of Kotwali police and in-charge of special operations group under SP and Mahila police station in-charge will carry out the confiscation proceedings following the court's directive. The next date of the hearing in the case is December 20. Officials said that the police team had initiated the process of collection of the records of properties belonging to Tripathi and court notices had been slapped on his residence in Gorakhpur. On December 2, Pramod Giri of MP/MLA Court, Basti, had directed officials to start identification and attachment of all moveable and immovable properties belonging to the former minister for not making a single appearance in court in the 22-year-old case of abduction, despite issuance of non-bailable warrant and providing many chances to appear before the court. The tough posture adopted by the police has increased problems for the former minister in connection with the Rahul Gupta case that was registered in 2001 against seven people -- Hanuman Shukla Kaka, Ajay Mishra, Anand Singh, Ram Vilas, Jay Pratap Shivam Naini Sharma and Amar Mani Tripathi -- for kidnapping a school boy in Basti who was later found at the residence of the former minister in Lucknow. Tripathi along with his wife, Madhumani Tripathi, were prematurely released in life sentence in the poetess Madhumita Shukla murder case of 2003, on August 25, 2023. But they stayed on at the BRD Medical College to receive treatment and avoided appearing before the court on health grounds. /IANS