Mukhtar Ansari news LIVE: The gangster-turned-politician died of cardiac arrest at a hospital in Uttar Pradesh's Banda on Thursday.

Gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari is being produced in a district court in a money laundering case, in Prayagraj on Wednesday. (ANI Photo)
Gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari is being produced in a district court in a money laundering case, in Prayagraj on Wednesday. (ANI Photo)

Mukhtar Ansari news LIVE: Gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari died of cardiac arrest at a hospital in Uttar Pradesh's Banda on Thursday. Mukhtar Ansari was brought to the Rani Durgavati Medical College in the city from the district jail in “an unconscious state” after he had complained of vomiting. According to a medical bulletin, a team of nine doctors attended to him but he died of cardiac arrest, it stated.

Preparations for the funeral of gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari are underway at the Kali Bagh Graveyard in Ghazipur. His body was handed over to his son, Umar Ansari, after a post-mortem.

Following Mukhtar Ansari's death, security has been beefed up across Uttar Pradesh. The Uttar Pradesh government has imposed prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), which bars large gatherings, across the state. Additional security personnel have been deployed in the Banda, Mau, Ghazipur and Varanasi districts.

Also Read | Mukhtar Ansari: How Indian Army officer's grandson became a dreaded criminal

Mukhtar Ansari was hospitalised for around 14 hours on Tuesday after he complained of abdominal pain. The gangster-turned-politician's family has alleged that the 63-year-old was being “slow-poisoned” by a substance mixed in food given to him in the Banda jail.

Who was Mukhtar Ansari?

  • Mukhtar Ansari, 63, was a five-time MLA from Mau Sadar – from 1996 to 2022 – twice as a Bahujan Samaj Party candidate, twice as an Independent and once as a Quami Ekta Dal nominee.
  • The gangster-turned-politician had been behind bars in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab since 2005. He had more than 60 criminal cases pending against him.
  • Mukhtar 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.
  • In 2022, Mukhtar Ansari passed on the baton to his elder son Abbas Ansari, who won from the same assembly seat as a candidate of the Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party in 2022, which was then in an alliance with the Samajwadi Party.