Lucknow: A magisterial inquiry was ordered on Friday as opposition parties raised questions over the death of gangster-politician Mukhtar Ansari, amid allegations by his family that he died due to “slow poisoning” in Banda jail.
A panel of doctors conducted a post-mortem at Rani Durgavati Medical College in Banda, amid a security alert across several districts in Uttar Pradesh.
A long convoy of vehicles left the city in the evening with Ansari’s body for his home district Ghazipur. It included 24 police vehicles, two others carrying family members and the ambulance with the body of the five-time MLA from Mau Sadar.
Banda Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) Bhagwan Das Gupta ordered the statutory magisterial probe, appointing Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Garima Singh as the investigating officer. She has been asked to submit the probe report within a month.
However, opposition parties demanded a CBI probe, or an inquiry that involves the higher judiciary. The BJP slammed them saying they have the habit of emotionally exploiting every issue to spoil communal harmony.
Ansari was brought to the Durgavati hospital from the district jail in “an unconscious state” at 8.25 pm on Thursday and died there due to cardiac arrest, a medical bulletin had earlier said. A team of nine doctors attended to him.
Soon after the death, prohibitory orders banning large gatherings were clamped across the state. The UP Police and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) were deployed in strength in the Banda, Mau, Ghazipur, and Varanasi districts.
Earlier, on Tuesday, Ansari was admitted to the same hospital when he complained of abdominal pains, and was sent back to the prison after 14 hours. His brother Afzal Ansari, who is also the Ghazipur MP, had made the poisoning charge then as well.
PTI