The funeral of gangster-politician Mukhtar Ansari will be held at 10am today in Uttar Pradesh's Ghazipur, amid tight security. His body was brought to his residence there earlier today.
The burial will be at Mohammadabad's Kali Bagh cemetery in Ghazipur. Security arrangements have been tightened in Ghazipur and surrounding districts, including Mau.
Ansari, a former MLA who had been booked in more than 60 cases, died on Thursday night after he was rushed to the Rani Durgavati Medical College in Banda from the district jail, where he was lodged.
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Though his family had alleged that he died due to "slow poisoning" in the jail, the post-mortem yesterday confirmed that he died of cardiac arrest. The autopsy was conducted by a panel of five doctors. A senior hospital source, who oversaw the post-mortem examination on Friday and had access to the report, told PTI on condition of anonymity, "The cause of death of Mukhtar Ansari was found to be heart attack (myocardial infarction)."
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After the postmortem at the Rani Durgavati Medical College, Banda, the ambulance carrying the body was accompanied by police vehicles to ensure security along the 400-kilometre-long route via several districts of Uttar Pradesh.
Mukhtar Ansari was convicted and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment in April 2023 for the murder of BJP MLA Krishnanand Rai by an MP-MLA court. He was also sentenced to life imprisonment on March 13, 2024, in a case related to the use of forged documents for obtaining an arms licence in 1990.
Meanwhile, a chief judicial magistrate's court in Uttar Pradesh's Banda on Friday ordered a judicial inquiry into Ansari's death. The investigation team will be headed by Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate (MP-MLA Court Banda) Garima Singh, said the order issued by Banda Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) Bhagwan Das Gupta. The CJM has sought the probe report within a month.
