Mukhtar Ansari’s son alleges he was given slow poison in jail, family demands probe

The son of gangster turned politician Mukhtar Ansari on Friday (March 29) alleged that his father, who died of cardiac arrest at a hospital in Uttar Pradesh's Banda, was administered slow poison in jail.

The charge has been denied by authorities.

Mukhtar Ansari was brought to the Rani Durgavati Medical College in Banda from the district jail in "an unconscious state" and, according to its principal Suneel Kaushal, he died at the hospital following cardiac arrest on Thursday (March 28).

The 63-year-old was a five-time MLA from Mau Sadar. He had been behind bars in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab since 2005. He had over 60 criminal cases pending against him.

Ansari was sentenced in eight cases since September 2022 by different courts in Uttar Pradesh and was lodged in the Banda jail. His name was on the list of 66 gangsters issued by Uttar Pradesh Police last year.

"My father had told us he was being subjected to 'slow poison'," Ansari's son Umar Ansari told reporters and added that the entire country knows about it now.

Ansari's brother and Ghazipur MP Afzal Ansari had on Tuesday (March 26) alleged that he was being subjected to "slow poisoning" in jail.

Large deployment of security personnel

On Friday morning, people had gathered at the Mukhtar Ansari's residence. There was a large deployment of security personnel around the house as well as the hospital.

"We don't have any information about when the post-mortem will be done. We were hoping that the post-mortem would be done in the night itself and the body would be handed over to us in the morning. I don't understand why the administration is delaying it," Sibgatullah Ansari, Ansari's elder brother, told reporters.

When asked about the charges of "slow poisoning" levelled by Umar, he said, "... Ansari had informed the court through his lawyers in writing that these things are happening."

Prohibitory orders

Prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), which bars large gatherings, have been imposed across the state and additional security personnel deployed in the Banda, Mau, Ghazipur, and Varanasi districts.

Ansari, who hailed from Mau, was believed to have a strong influence in the adjoining Ghazipur and Varanasi districts as well.

Officials at the police headquarters in Lucknow said Ansari's post-mortem will be done in Banda and it will be video-graphed. The viscera will be preserved if needed, they said.

Uttar Pradesh Director General of Police Prashant Kumar had said on Thursday (March 28) that prohibitory orders under the section 144 of the CrPC have been imposed across the state and teams of the Central Reserve Police Force along with the local police deployed in Banda, Mau, Ghazipur, and Varanasi.

The social media cell of the Uttar Pradesh Police has also been activated to keep a close watch on unlawful elements online, the police chief had said.

(With inputs from agencies)