MUKHTAR ANSARI

A senior official said Ansari was admitted to the medical college in a very critical condition and was declared dead by doctors after being given cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).

Another official at UP Police headquarters confirmed that police deployment had been increased in Ghazipur, Mau, Varanasi and other districts of east UP. Besides, paramilitary forces were deployed in Banda.

He said an alert was sounded across the state and Section 144 of the CrPC was imposed in sensitive districts.

On December 4, 2023, Umar Ansari had filed a petition in the Supreme Court, stating that his father, Mukhtar Ansari, 60, faced life threat in jail and appealed to transfer him to any jail outside UP, to a state ruled by any party other than the BJP, seeking intervention in the matter.

Prison administration officials said Mukhtar Ansari’s health deteriorated again on Thursday night, after which he was immediately rushed to the medical college for treatment.

On March 13, 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 was convicted and sentenced by a court in Uttar Pradesh in the past two years.

Before this, in December 2023, the MP/MLA court of Varanasi had found Ansari guilty of threatening Mahavir Prasad Rungta, a witness in the murder of 26-year-old coal businessman Nand Kishor Rungta, and had sentenced him to five and a half years of rigorous imprisonment and slapped a fine of Rs 10,000 against him.