Post-mortem report reveals Mukhtar Ansari died of cardiac arrest

A post-mortem examination of gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari's body has revealed that he died after suffering a cardiac arrest in a prison in Banda.

According to local media reports, the examination was conducted by a panel of doctors at the Rani Durgawati Medical College. The report refuted claims made by his relatives and several politicians that he died due to slow poisoning. The development comes hours after Banda's Chief Judicial Magistrate Bhagwan Dass Gupta ordered a judicial inquiry into the death of the 63-year-old five-time MLA.

MP/MLA court judge Garima Singh was asked to submit the report to the CJM within a month.

Meanwhile, Mukhtar Ansari's bother Sibgatullah Ansari told ANI, that the last rites will be done on March 30 morning.

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 Banda, Mau, Ghazipur, and Varanasi districts.

Earlier, on Tuesday, Ansari was admitted at 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.

The allegations have been denied by the authorities.

In the evening, Ansari’s body was headed for Mohammadabad Yusufpur township in Ghazipur district.

Police were on alert in districts that fall on the 400-km Banda-Ghazipur route, which runs through Fatehpur, Kaushambi, Prayagraj and Varanasi.

The burial at the family cemetery, where a grave was dug during the day for Ansari, will take place Saturday morning, Suhaib Ansari, his nephew and Samajwadi Party's MLA from Mohammadabad, said on X.

Shops in Mohammadabad remained closed during the day and many people gathered outside the Ansari family home. Gulab Ram, a former Ghazipur unit chief of the Bahujan Samaj Party, told PTI Videos that "people are heartbroken".

Ansari’s son Umar Ansari had arrived at the Banda hospital past midnight Thursday.

"We got the news of his death only through the media. We will demand a high-level inquiry and do whatever we have to do through the court. We have full confidence in the court," he told reporters, levelling the poisoning charge again.

He also wrote to the Banda district magistrate, alleging that his father was killed in a planned manner and demanding that the postmortem be performed at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi.

"We have no faith of getting justice from the administration and the doctors' team of Banda," his letter said.

SP president Akhilesh Yadav demanded a probe under the supervision of a Supreme Court judge. AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi said there should be an independent inquiry into the death.

Also watch: UP court orders judicial probe into Mukhtar Ansari's death