Mukhtar son: Dad slowly poisoned
Lucknow, 29: Mukhtar Ansari was subjected to slow poisoning in jail, Umar Ansari, the son of the gangsterturned-politician who died of cardiac arrest at a hospital in Uttar Pradesh’s Banda, alleged early Friday.
The charge has been denied by authorities.
Mukhtar Ansari was brought to the Rani Durgavati Medical College in Banda from the district jail in “an unconscious state” and, according to its principal Suneel Kaushal, he died at the hospital following cardiac arrest on Thursday.
The 63-year-old was a five-time MLA from Mau Sadar. He had been behind bars in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab since 2005. He had over 60 criminal cases pending against him.
Mukhtar Ansari was sentenced in eight cases since September 2022 by different courts in Uttar Pradesh and was lodged in the Banda jail. His name was on the list of 66 gangsters issued by Uttar Pradesh Police last year.
“My father had told us he was being subjected to 'slow poison',” Umar Ansari told reporters and added that the entire country knows about it now. Mukhtar Ansari’s brother and Ghazipur MP Afzal Ansari had on Tuesday alleged that he was being subjected to “slow poisoning” in jail.
Meanwhile, BSP president Mayawati on Friday demanded a high-level inquiry into the death of Mukhtar saying the truth of the case needs to come before the public.
On Friday morning, people had gathered at the Mukhtar Ansari’s residence. There was a large deployment of security personnel around the house as well as the hospital. After the completion of postmortem, Ansari’s body on Friday left for his native place in Ghazipur amidst heavy security from here, police officials said. —