Jailed gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari ied of cardiac arrest on Thursday within hours after he was rushed to the Rani Durgawati Medical College in Banda district. “Around 8:25 p.m. convicted/undertail prisoner Mukhtar Ansari, son of Subhanullah, aged 63, was brought by jail staff to the Emergency department at the Rani Durgawati Medical College in an unconscious state. The patient was treated by a team of nine doctors and given all possible medical facilities, but despite all the attempts for recovery, the patient died due to cardiac arrest,” reads the medical bulletin. Earlier also on March 26, the late Ansari was admitted to a hospital after he complained of abdominal pain and later discharged with his family alleging of him being ‘poisoned’.
Mr. Ansari, a five-time former MLA, faced more than five dozen cases and has been languishing in jail since 2005. He wields influence in the Ghazipur-Mau-Varanasi region of eastern Uttar Pradesh allegedly through a criminal syndicate and been involved in rivalry with other strongmen of the regions. In the last 18 months, the deceased has been convicted in seven cases by the courts. In June 2023, a MP/MLA court sentenced the former MLA to life imprisonment in the murder of Awadhesh Rai, brother of Uttar Pradesh Congress president Ajay Rai. Earlier in April 2023, the former MLA was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment in connection with the cases of kidnapping of Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Nand Kishore Rungta and the 2005 murder of BJP MLA Krishnanand Rai, respectively. The Uttar Pradesh government said it seized or demolished properties worth more than ₹600 crore related to the Ansari group and killed five criminals allegedly belonging to the group in encounters.
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