Police: No poison found in Mukhtar Ansari’s viscera

“The viscera was sent to the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) for examination. We have received the viscera report which stated that no poison was detected,” the police official said.

Separate judicial and magisterial inquiries into his death are going on into the circumstances surrounding Mukhtar’s death.

During the probes, statements from the jail staff are being recorded and footage from CCTV cameras installed in the prison has been collected for examination, a jail official said, adding that the barrack in which Ansari was lodged has been sealed.

In a letter to the Banda District Magistrate seeking autopsy by an All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) panel, Mukhtar’s Umar Ansari had claimed that his father was a victim of “an orchestrated plan”. He stated that the courts in Barabanki and Banda districts were apprised through lawyers that his father was being administered slow poison in his food.

Convicted in eight cases, Mukhtar was incarcerated since 2005 following his surrender in a communal riots case in Mau, resulting in seven deaths.

Also, three days after Mukhtar’s death, an FIR was lodged against unidentified person(s) for allegedly making a threat call to the Banda district jail superintendent on the night of March 28.

The FIR was registered under Sections 504 (intentional insult with intent to provide breach of the peace) and 507 (criminal intimidation through anonymous communication) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). No one has been arrested in the case so far.