Jailed gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari died on Thursday night after suffering a cardiac arrest in the Banda jail in Uttar Pradesh.
The dreaded mafia was taken to Banda Medical College Hospital after his health deteriorated. Scores of people gathered at Ansari’s residence in Ghazipur as the news of his death spread.
The death came amid his family members’ claim that he was being slow-poisoned in jail. On Tuesday, Mukhtar Ansari was admitted to the same medical college when he complained of abdominal pain and was unable to pass stool for four consecutive days. At that time, he was discharged after 14 hours and sent back to Banda jail.
Mukhtar Ansari has been behind bars in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh since 2005. The 60-year-old don-turned-politician has over 60 criminal cases pending against him. He has been sentenced in eight cases since September 2022 by different courts of UP and was lodged in the Banda jail.
His name was on the list of 66 gangsters issued by Uttar Pradesh Police last year. His family members had earlier expressed apprehension that Mukhtar Ansari could be killed in a fake encounter.
On March 13, Mukhtar 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 has been convicted and sentenced by a court in Uttar Pradesh in the past two years. Ansari was also sentenced to six months of imprisonment under Section 30 of the Arms Act.
