Court orders judicial probe into Mukhtar Ansari’s death, seeks report in a month

Meanwhile, Ansari’s post-mortem examination was conducted by a panel of doctors in Banda. His body will now be handed over to family members and will be taken to Mohammadabad in Ghazipur district.

Earlier in the day, Mukhtar Ansari’s son Umar Ansari alleged that his father was subjected to slow poisoning in jail. “My father had told us he was being subjected to slow poisoning,” Umar told reporters, adding that his father’s body will be taken to Ghazipur for burial after post-mortem.

The police has already chalked out a route plan for the safe transit of the body via road from Banda to Ghazipur, a distance of around 380 km.

Security in several districts of Uttar Pradesh has been increased and prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the CrPC have been imposed across the state. Teams of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) along with the local police have been deployed in Banda, Mau, Ghazipur and Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh Director General of Police Prashant Kumar told news agency PTI.

On Tuesday, Mukhtar’s brother Afzal Ansari, said, “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.

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.

The latest conviction of Mukhtar was on 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 he was convicted and sentenced by a UP court in the last two years.

Here are the cases in which Ansari was convicted:

📌 In December last year, Ansari 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, Ansari 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).

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