Who was Mukhtar Ansari, jailed gangster-turned-politician, who died of cardiac arrest?

Jailed gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari died following a cardiac arrest at the Banda medical college in Uttar Pradesh.

Jailed gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari died following a cardiac arrest at the Banda medical college in Uttar Pradesh on Thursday - a day after he was taken to the hospital from the Banda district jail after his health deteriorated.

Mukhtar Ansari

According to a bulletin by the medical college, Ansari was admitted to the hospital earlier in the day around 8:25 pm as his health was “critical”. “A team of nine doctors attended him but despite all their efforts, he passed away following the cardiac arrest,” the bulletin read.

Who was Mukhtar Ansari?

1. Mukhar Ansari was a gangster-turned-politician who has been a five-time MLA from Uttar Pradesh's Mau constituency. He was a relative of former Vice President Mohammad Hamid Ansari. Ansari's paternal grandfather was a freedom fighter and also served as the president of Congress party, while his maternal grandfather served as a Brigadier in the Indian Army.
2. During the early 1970s, Ansari was an alleged member of the Makhanu Singh gang - which had clashed with another gang led by Sahib Singh over a plot of land in Saidpur, resulting in a series of violent incidents. Ansari had also been involved in mafia activities around Ghazipur.
3. Ansari began his political career in the early 1990s as a student union leader in Banaras Hindu University (BHU). He was later elected as an MLA in 1996. Eventually, the gangster-turned-politician became the undisputed leader of Poorvanchal region by capitalising on Muslim votebank. Later in 2007, Ansari and his brother joined the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). In 2009, Ansari fought the Lok Sabha election from Varanasi while he was in jail, but lost to a BJP candidate. Following this a year later, the BSP expelled Ansari and his brother from the party.
4. Ansari, who had been in jail for over 15 years, had 63 cases of land grabbing, extortion and murder on him. At the age of 15 in 1978, a case of criminal intimidation under Indian Penal Code section 506 was lodged against Ansari. In 1986, the first murder case was lodged against him. His name was also on the list of 66 gangsters issued by Uttar Pradesh Police last year.
5. The gangster-turned-politician was sentenced in eight cases since September 2022 by different courts of Uttar Pradesh and was lodged in the Banda jail. Last year, he was also sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment by Ghazipur's MP-MLA court along with a fine of ₹5 lakh for the kidnapping and murder case of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA Krishnanand Rai. Meanwhile, on March 13, he was sentenced to life imprisonment in a case related to the use of forged documents for obtaining an arms license in 1990.