 "Mukhtar Ansari")
Gangster-turned-politician from Uttar Pradesh, Mukhtar Ansari died of a heart attack on Thursday night. He was laid to rest in his hometown of Ghazipur on Saturday under tight security measures.
A large gathering of people participated in the funeral procession of Ansari, a former five-time MLA, as he was buried in Ghazipur at around 10:45 am.
Prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the CrPC were enforced across the state, with teams from the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and local police deployed in Banda, Mau, Ghazipur, and Varanasi to maintain law and order.
What was Mukhtar Ansari’s cause of death?
The post-mortem examination confirmed that Ansari died of cardiac arrest, with the entire procedure videographed for transparency.
Following the autopsy, Ansari’s body was transported to Ghazipur for the funeral rites, where tight security arrangements were implemented.
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His son, Abbas Ansari, currently an MLA from Mau and lodged in Kasganj jail, sought permission from the Supreme Court to attend his father’s funeral.
Conspiracies surrounding Ansari’s death
Ansari, aged 60, was rushed to the hospital from Banda jail on Thursday evening in an unconscious state, where he was later pronounced dead due to cardiac arrest. His sudden demise came after concerns raised by his legal representatives regarding potential threats to his life while in custody. Just days before his death, his brother Afzal Ansari alleged that Mukhtar was being poisoned in jail as part of a conspiracy to murder him.
In December 2023, Mukhtar’s son, Umar Ansari, petitioned the Supreme Court, expressing fears that the state government planned to assassinate his father in Banda jail, where he was held on various criminal charges.
Former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, as well as, BSP Supremo Mayawati have demanded a judicial probe supervised by a Supreme Court judge into Ansari’s death, expressing concerns over the integrity of the judicial process.
Consequently, the Chief Judicial Magistrate in Banda ordered a judicial probe, appointing a three-member team to investigate the circumstances surrounding Ansari’s death.
Who was Mukhtar Ansari?
Born into an influential family in 1963, Mukhtar Ansari was charged with criminal intimidation at the age of 15 in Ghazipur.
By 1986, Ansari’s notoriety in the contract mafia had soared, with a murder case against him at Muhammad Police Station. Over the next decade, he amassed a staggering number of criminal cases, with at least 14 serious charges lodged against him.
Mukhtar Ansari’s political career
In 1996, Mukhtar Ansari secured his first electoral victory as an MLA from Mau, representing the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). Despite subsequent stints as an independent candidate and the launch of his own party in 2012, Qaumi Ekta Dal (QED), Ansari’s political career remained tainted by his criminal background.
From 2005 until his death, Ansari found himself in and out of jails in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, facing several criminal charges, including murder and violations of the Gangster Act. Despite his legal troubles, Ansari continued to hold political influence, winning elections and even securing a seat for his son Abbas Ansari in 2022.
Criminal charges and imprisonment
In 2020, Ansari faced scrutiny from the police, who seized illegal property worth Rs 608 crore belonging to the gang.
Ansari’s legal troubles culminated in numerous convictions, with courts handing down sentences ranging from rigorous imprisonment to life terms. He had a total of 28 criminal cases lodged against him, out of which he was convicted in eight. Twenty-one cases are still pending trials in different courts.
In September 2022, he was awarded a seven-year life sentence for threatening a jailor in 2003. In the same month, he was awarded five years of imprisonment and fined Rs 50,000 under a Gangster Act case registered against him in 1999.
On December 15, 2022, Ansari was awarded a 10-year sentence and fined a penalty of Rs 5 lakh each in two cases filed against him under the Gangster Act in 1996 and 2007.
In April 2023, Ansari was sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment in the murder case of BJP MLA Krishnanand Rai. Later that year in June, he was sentenced to another five years in relation to a murder case of Awadesh Rai, the elder brother of UP Congress president Ajay Rai.
In October and December 2023, he was sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment in a Gangster Act case lodged in 2010, and five years and six months on allegations of giving death threats to Mahavir Prasad Rungta in 1997, respectively. He was also fined Rs 5 lakh under the Gangster Act.
In March 2021, the Supreme Court ordered his transfer from Ropar jail in Punjab to Uttar Pradesh following a plea filed by the UP government.
[With agency inputs]
