Judicial Investigation into Mukhtar Ansari’s Death Ordered by Court, Report Expected in a Month

Following the death of incarcerated gangster and politician Mukhtar Ansari due to a heart attack in a Uttar Pradesh prison, a judicial inquiry has been ordered by the Chief Judicial Magistrate’s court of Banda. The court has tasked MP/MLA court judge Garima Singh with conducting the investigation into Ansari’s death and delivering the report to the Banda Chief Judicial Magistrate within a month.

In the meantime, Ansari’s postmortem is being carried out by a group of doctors. Earlier in the day, Ansari’s son, Umar Ansari, claimed that his father had been slowly poisoned while in jail. He stated that his father had previously informed them of this, and now the entire country is aware of it.

Afzal Ansari, his brother who visited him in the hospital, shared with the media that his brother had been given some poisonous substance in his food, and this was the second occurrence. He expressed gratitude for his brother being sent to the hospital under these circumstances and suggested that if the hospital in Banda cannot provide adequate treatment, a timely referral should be made. Afzal currently serves as the MP from Ghazipur.

Security measures have been heightened in several districts of Uttar Pradesh, with prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the CrPC being enforced across the state. Teams of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and local police have been stationed in Banda, Mau, Ghazipur, and Varanasi, as reported by Uttar Pradesh Director General of Police Prashant Kumar.

Following the postmortem, Umar Ansari stated that they plan to transport the body to Ghazipur for burial. The police have already devised a route plan for the safe transit of the body from Banda to Ghazipur, a distance of approximately 380 Km.

Ansari, a 63-year-old five-time MLA from the Mau constituency in eastern UP, had a criminal record with a total of 65 cases against him in various police stations of UP and Delhi. He was serving time in Banda jail, having been convicted in eight cases over the past two years.

His most recent conviction occurred on March 13, when he was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Varanasi MP/MLA court in a case related to the use of forged documents to obtain an arms license in 1990. This marked the eighth case in which Ansari was convicted and sentenced by a UP court in the last two years.

Here are the cases in which Ansari has been convicted:

In December of the previous year, Ansari was sentenced to five years and six months in prison in a 26-year-old case for threatening to kill a businessman in Varanasi.
On October 10, 2023, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison in a Gangsters Act case filed in 2010 in Ghazipur.
On June 5, 2023, he was sentenced to life imprisonment in a murder and rioting case in Varanasi from 1991.
On April 29, 2023, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison in a Gangsters Act case related to the murder of then BJP MLA Krishnand Rai in 2005.
On December 15, 2022, Ansari was sentenced to 10 years in prison in a Gangsters Act case from 1996 filed in Ghazipur.
On September 23, 2022, Ansari was sentenced to five years in prison in a Gangsters Act case filed in Lucknow’s Hazratganj police station in 1999.
On September 21, 2022, Ansari was sentenced to seven years in prison in a 2003 case under IPC sections 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace) and 506 (criminal intimidation).