LUCKNOW: Three months after his lawyers moved the Indian Supreme Court about the possibility that he may be eliminated in custody, jailed Muslim leader and former MLA Mukhtar Ansari died in a jail in Uttar Pradesh state.
According to Kashmir Media Service, Mukhtar Ansari, 63, died on Thursday after he was rushed to a hospital from Banda jail in Uttar Pradesh, officials claimed.
UP Director General of Police Prashant Kumar said prohibitory orders under section 144 were imposed across the state following Ansari’s death. Additional deployment of police personnel has also been made in Banda, Mau, Ghazipur and Varanasi districts, he added. “Teams of Central Reserve Police Force have been deployed along with local police in these districts,” the DGP said.
Government doctors said Ansari had fallen unconscious but two days before his death, his brother Afzal Ansari, a former Member of Parliament and Samajwadi Party candidate from Ghazipur in 2024, publicly said that he was being poisoned in jail as part of a conspiracy to murder him.
In December 2023, Mukhtar’s younger son, Umar Ansari, had approached the Supreme Court apprehending that the UP government was planning to assassinate him in Banda jail.
Ansari fainted in his cell and was taken to the Rani Durgavati Medical College on Thursday evening, after vomiting and losing consciousness, said a medical bulletin of the hospital. He was taken to the emergency ward where a team of doctors immediately treated him but despite best efforts, he died due to cardiac arrest, claimed the bulletin.
Earlier, on Tuesday, Afzal Ansari had said that his brother was fed food mixed with a poisonous substance. “There is a conspiracy to murder him in jail,” Afzal told reporters. He said his brother’s health was fast deteriorating and he was even unable to even attend the virtual hearings in his case for the past few days.
