Mukhtar Ansari’s time in jail marked by constant fear & anxiety

Lucknow: Since 2018, at least four associates closely affiliated with gangster-politician Mukhtar Ansari have been reported killed while in custody, causing him to fear for his life. Umar Ansari, the son of the five-time Mau MLA, went as far as filing a writ petition in the Supreme Court, expressing apprehensions about his father’s potential “assassination” while in jail. The 63-year-old Mukhtar Ansari was brought to the Rani Durgavati Medical College in Banda from the district jail in “an unconscious state” on Thursday evening and died at the hospital following a cardiac arrest.

The noose around Mukhtar Ansari, who had over 60 cases lodged against him, began tightening after the BJP government came to power in Uttar Pradesh in 2017. A year after the change of government Ansari, the five-time MLA from Mau, got a blow when his close aide Prem Prakash Singh alias Munna Bajrangi was killed in Baghpat jail. Bajrangi was killed by another gangster Sunil Rathi on July 9, 2018, a day after he was brought to Baghpat jail from Jhansi jail. According to senior police officials, Mukhtar Ansari was jittery after the sensational murder and his lawyers began making efforts to get him shifted outside Uttar Pradesh. In January 2019, he was taken to Ropar Jail in Punjab in connection with an extortion case.yDespite 23 reminders to the Punjab government, Mukhtar Ansari stayed in Ropar Jail for almost two years.The then Congress government in Punjab led by Capt Amarinder Singh kept avoiding his transfer from Ropar Jail citing his medical condition.

Ansari was eventually brought back and sent to Banda Jail in April 2021 following the Supreme Court orders. Just weeks after Mukhtar Ansari returned, his two aides Merajuddin and Mukeem Kala were shot dead by another gangster inside Chitrakoot jail.