LUCKNOW: Jailed mafia gangster Mukhtar Ansari, 63, died due to cardiac attack during treatment at Banda medical college on Thursday night. Ansari was a five-time former MLA from Mau Sadar seat and has been behind bars in UP and Punjab since 2005.
He had 65 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.
A senior police officer said that he was taken to the emergency department of Rani Durgavati Medical College, Banda by the jail personnel complaining of vomiting and in an unconscious state. The patient was provided immediate medical care by a team of nine doctors. But despite best efforts the patient died due to cardiac arrest.
Presently lodged at Banda jail, mafia don Mukhtar Ansari was again admitted to Banda Medical College on Thursday evening after he was found lying unconscious in his barrack. The jail officials immediately spotted him and took him to the district hospital.
Earlier sources in Banda jail said that Mukhtar Ansari suffered a heart attack and was taken to the hospital.
The entire district hospital was turned into a fortress and the journalists were stopped at the gate.
Security heightened in Mukhtar Ansari’s home district of Ghazipur and neighbouring Mau district, where he won Mau Sadar seat for four consecutive times. DM Ghazipur Aryka Akhauri and SP Omvir Singh were monitoring the situation closely.
SP Mau Elemaran G had come in field to review security arrangements in communally sensitive and mixed populated area of the district.
On Tuesday morning Mukhtar was found unconscious and was referred to the district hospital. He had complained of pain in abdomen and constipation. He was discharged after treatment in 15 hours.
Last week after Mukhtar’s lawyer Randheer Singh Suman had moved an application before a court in Barabanki seeking proper medical examination alleging that ‘slow poisoning’ was being administered to him by Banda prison staff where he was presently lodged. Ansari has faced convictions in eight cases within a mere 18-month span.
Two cases were of life term. He was shifted to Banda jail in April 2021 on the directions of the Supreme Court from Ropar jail in Punjab.
His brother and Ghazipur MP Afzal Ansari, on Tuesday had reached the hospital and alleged that his brother was given poison in jail.