Family cries foul as Muslim leader dies in Indian prison

NEW DELHI: The suspicious death of Mukhtar Ansari, a jailed politician from Uttar Pradesh, will be investigated by a magistrate after his family claimed he was poisoned, reports said on Friday.

A three-member team is expected to commence the investigation into his death shortly, an order by Chief Judicial Magistrate Banda said.

Mukhtar Ansari was declared dead on March 28 at a Banda hospital after he suffered a cardiac arrest. However, his family claimed Ansari was being given ‘slow poison’ inside jail, which led to his demise.

His death comes nearly a year after another Muslim politician was shot dead on live TV in Uttar Pradesh.

Opposition parties assail BJP govt over failure to ensure Ansari’s safety

Afzal Ansari, an MP from Uttar Pradesh’s Ghazipur and brother of Mukhtar, claimed, “Mukhtar said he was given a poisonous substance in food in jail. This happened for the second time. Around 40 days ago also he was given poison. And recently, he was again given this (poison) due to which his condition was bad.”

Afzal said that during a hearing on March 21, his brother’s lawyer had told the Barabanki court that his client had allegedly been given “slow poison” in jail due to which his condition was deteriorating. The politician was hospitalised on Tuesday for 14 hours, but was released after his condition was reported as stable.

“It (post-mortem) is their procedure. I have written a letter saying that it should be done by doctors at AIIMS, Delhi. We don’t trust the medical system, the government and administration here...You know why I am saying this...Panchnama is done. District Magistrate has to make a decision. Let’s see what he decides. The post-mortem has not begun,” his son Umar Ansari said. “We hope the court will help investigate the suspicions that we are expressing. We will consult our legal team. We are confident that this is not a natural death but an orchestrated murder,” he added.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is seen as a trigger-happy head of India’s most populous state. Ever since the BJP government took over under his watch in Uttar Pradesh in March 2017, police have shot dead 190 persons in incidents of alleged exchange of fire that the state terms as “encounters”. From March 2017 to September 2023, police in UP also shot and injured 5,591 persons in these incidents.

The administration has issued orders to bar large gatherings across the UP state. Additional security personnel have been deployed in Banda, Mau, Ghazipur and Varanasi, as officials said two doctors would conduct the post-mortem examination, which would be video-graphed, before his body would be handed over to his son.

‘Govt anarchy’

Opposition Samajwadi Party chief and former UP CM Akhilesh Yadav attacked the UP government over his death. “A government that cannot protect life has no right to remain in power. Uttar Pradesh is going through the worst phase of ‘government anarchy’. This is the ‘zero hour’ of law and order in UP,” he claimed.

Former chief minister Mayawati demanded a high-level inquiry into the death. “The persistent apprehensions and serious allegations made by the Ansari family regarding his death in jail require a high-level investigation,” she added.

BJP leader Hari Sahani, however, insisted that the ‘gangster’ died due to disease.

Published in Dawn, March 30th, 2024

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