The Indian Express (Delhi Edition)
Mukhtar Ansari, jailed UP gangster and politician, dies of cardiac arrest
Two days ago, brother quoted him alleging threat to life; Ansari was convicted in 8 cases in last 2 years
JAILED GANGSTER-TURNEDPOLITICIAN Mukhtar Ansari died Thursday night after he suffered a cardiac arrest in Banda prison in Uttar Pradesh.
Convicted in eight cases in the last two years, 63-year-old Ansari was lodged in Banda jail. A five-time MLA from Mau constituency in eastern UP, he was a history-sheeter with a total of 65 cases against him in different police stations of UP and Delhi.
A statement issued by Banda Medical College, where Ansari was taken, said he complained of vomiting and fell unconscious at 8.25 pm.
“A team of nine doctors gave him immediate medical assistance. Despite best efforts, he died due to cardiac arrest,” the medical college stated.
Following his death, police were deployed in large numbers at the Banda Medical College and prohibitory orders were imposed across the state to maintain law and order. Ansari’s family members were expected to reach Banda late Thursday night. There was heavy police presence outside his paternal house in Mohammadabad in Ghazipur where people began gathering on learning of his death.
On Tuesday morning, Ansari was admitted to the Banda Medical College after he complained of abdominal pain. His family members had alleged that Ansari said he was being poisoned in prison.
He was returned to the prison Tuesday evening after doctors said his condition had improved.
His brother Afzal Ansari, who had met him in the hospital, told mediapersons Tuesday, “The medical college has formed a team and treatment is ongoing. He is in the ICU and I met him for five minutes. He is conscious. He told me that he has been given some poisonous substance in his food. And that this has happened the second time. It happened 40 days ago too. In this condition, at least he was sent to hospital. I am thankful for it… If the hospital in Banda can’t provide proper treatment, then he should be referred in time.”
Afzal is the sitting MP from Ghazipur, elected in 2019 on the BSP symbol. In the upcoming
Lok Sabha elections, he will be contesting as a Samajwadi Party candidate from Ghazipur.
The latest conviction of Mukhtar Ansari was this March 13 when he was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Varanasi MP/MLA court in a case related to usage of forged documents for obtaining an arms licence in 1990.
It was the eighth case in which Ansari was convicted and sentenced by a UP court in the last two years.
■ In December last year, An sari was sentenced to five years-six-months in jail in a 26 year-old case for threatening to kill a businessman in Varanasi.
■On october 10,2023, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison in a Gangsters Act case lodged in 2010 in Ghazipur.
■On june 5,2023, he was sentenced to life imprisonment in a murder and rioting case in Varanasi from 1991.
■ On April 29, 2023, he was sentenced to 10 years in jail in a Gangsters Act case in connection with the murder of then BJP MLA Krishnand Rai in 2005.
■ On December 15, 2022, Ansari was sentenced to 10 years in prison in a Gangsters Act case from 1996 lodged in Ghazipur.
■ On September 23, 2022, An sari was sentenced to five years in jail in a Gangsters Act case lodged in Lucknow’s Hazratganj police station in 1999.
■ On September 21, 2022, Ansari was sentenced to seven years in jail in a 2003 case under IPC sections 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace) and 506 (criminal intimidation).
In April 2021, Ansari was shifted from Ropar prison in Punjab to band a prison. he was in Ropar jail for over two years from January 2019 to april 2021. he was brought to Punjab on January 22, 2019, on a transit remand after an extortion call was made to a Mohali-based builder.
His paternal grandfather, Mukhtar Ahmed Ansari, was a freedom fighter and a president of the Congress. One of the founders of the Jamia Millia Islamia University, he remained its Chancellor from 1928 until his death in 1936. Mukhtar Ansari was also related to Mohammad Us man, a brigadier who was killed in action during the Indo-pak war in 1948 and was posthumously awarded the Maha Vir Chakra.