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Mukhtar Ansari, gangster-turned-politician, dies in hospital after suffering cardiac arrest
Mukhtar Ansari death: Mukhtar Ansari was hospitalised for around 14 hours on Tuesday after he complained of abdominal pain.
Jailed gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari died on Thursday night after he suffered a heart attack in the Banda jail. The dreaded mafia was taken to a hospital after his health deteriorated where he reportedly died. People gathered at Ansari's residence in Ghazipur as the news of his death spread.
DGP Prashant Kumar as per the medical bulletin shared by the Banda Medical College, Mukhtar Ansari is dead. He was admitted to the hospital around 8.25pm. A team of nine doctors attended to him before he died.
Prohibitory orders under section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), which bars large gatherings, were imposed across Uttar Pradesh following Ansari's death, Uttar Pradesh Director General of Police Prashant Kumar said. There is a special deployment of police personnel in Banda, Mau, Ghazipur and Varanasi districts, he added.
The Samajwadi Party condoled Ansari's death. "Sad demise of former MLA Shri Mukhtar Ansari. May his soul rest in peace. May the bereaved family members get the strength to bear this immense loss. Humble tribute," the party said in a post in Hindi on X.
The death came amid his family members' claim that he was being slow-poisoned in jail. Two days before, on Tuesday, Mukhtar Ansari was admitted to the same medical college when he complained of abdominal pain and was unable to pass stool for four consecutive days. At that time, he was discharged after 14 hours and sent back to Banda jail.
“Mukhtar said that he was given a poisonous substance in food in jail. This happened for the second time. Around 40 days ago also he was given poison. And recently on March 19 and March 22, he was again given this (poison) due to which his condition is bad,” Afzal, an MP from Ghazipur, said when his brother was recently hospitalised.
The UP prison department then issued a statement that after Mukhtar Ansari fell in the toilet at night, he was immediately provided with treatment by the jail doctor.
Mukhtar Ansari has been behind bars in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh since 2005. The 60-year-old don-turned-politician has over 60 criminal cases pending against him. He has been sentenced in eight cases since September 2022 by different courts of UP and was lodged in the Banda jail.
His name was on the list of 66 gangsters issued by Uttar Pradesh Police last year. His family members had earlier expressed apprehension that Mukhtar Ansari could be killed in a fake encounter.
On March 13, Mukhtar Ansari was sentenced to life imprisonment in a case related to the use of forged documents for obtaining an arms licence in 1990. This was the eighth case in which the former five-time MLA has been convicted and sentenced by a court in Uttar Pradesh in the past two years. Ansari was also sentenced to six months of imprisonment under Section 30 of the Arms Act.
