It was a death foretold, and much awaited. Both the family and foes of gangster-politician Mukhtar Ansari knew the fateful day was near. It came on March 28, when the jailed don, according to official reports, suffered a “cardiac arrest” at the time of iftaar. His family alleges he was poisoned.
His death, at the beginning of India’s 2024 general elections, heralds a momentous moment for Muslims of North India. They have resorted to deep sorrow, as is evident from deluge of condolence messages on social media. Equally vibrant is the jubilation and a sense of “divine retribution” in the saffron camp, that will undoubtedly reap the political dividends of Ansari’s death.
Like his life, Ansari’s death will remain mired in politics and memories of mafia-ruled social divisions in the East UP badlands.
Ansari came from an illustrious clan of national heroes. His great-grandfather Mukhtar Ahmed Ansari, after whom he was named, was a freedom fighter, a former national president of the Congress party, a prominent figure of the Khilafat Movement, and one of the founders of the iconic Jamia Millia Islamia University.
Ansari’s maternal grandfather Brigadier Mohammad Usman was the highest ranking officer of the Indian Army to have been killed during the Indo-Pakistani War over Kashmir in 1948. He was honoured with Mahavir Chakra, the second highest military gallantry award.
Former diplomat and Vice-President of India Hamid Ansari is a cousin of Mukhtar’s.
Ansaris are the descendants of sufi saint Herat Abdullah Ansari, who lived in Herat in modern-day Afghanistan. They had settled in Gorakhpur, Yusufpur-Mohammdabad (Ghazilur) and Mau in medieval times.
Legions of family’s national service pervade their hometown Mohammadabad in Ghazipur district. Besides, the family is known for their philanthropic work among underprivileged sections of society. It was because of the pulls of socialism that Mukhtar’s father Subhanullah Ansari joined the Communist Party of India and lived a life of political wilderness and economic depravity.
Mukhtar’s brother Afzal won the UP Assembly election in 1985 as a Communist candidate against a powerful local bhumihar (landlord) politician, Abhay Narayan Rai of the Congress party.
According to Ansari’s complaint, former Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha, gangster-turned-politician and BJP leader Brajesh Singh, BJP’s UP legislator Sushil Singh, former IG of Special Task Force Amitabh Kant and a senior official of Ministry of Home Affairs (UP) had devised a plan to eliminate him within jail and the serial poisoning is part of the plot.
Against such a backdrop and family prestige, the entry of Mukhtar Ansari into the world of crime is unfathomable. “It was because his family suffered a political backlash at the hands of local chieftains who held sway over post-partition politics, especially banking on exploitation of the largely poor population of the area. Mukhtar responded to these situations and became notorious,” said Shahid Siddiqui, the editor of Urdu weekly Nai Duniya.
With the due course of time, the list of Mukhtar’s crimes grew. First he became associates of some known East UP thakur (Rajput) ganglord as Sadhu Singh, and then several thakurs began to work for his gang. Meanwhile, some known thakur gangster-politicians like Brajesh Singh and Sushil Singh turned into his arch foes. Both Brajesh and Sushil are presently BJP legislators in UP.
Poisoned?
Ansari was a hugely popular outlaw-politician from East UP, wielding clout in Ghazipur, Azamgarh, Varanasi and Mau. He was elected five times from Mau constituency for the UP Legislative Assembly.
Ansari’s elder brother Afzal Ansari, an MP and a Samajwadi Party candidate from Ghazipur, Ansaris’ hometown, has categorically alleged that Mukhtar was poisoned. He added that he was serially poisoned for the past forty days.
When Mukhtar was poisoned on March 19 and admitted to Banda Medical College Hospital, where he died the following Thursday, his lawyer submitted to the Barabanki district court that his client was poisoned and thus should be admitted to hospital for treatment. A copy of this submission that names the conspirators is with The Friday Times.
According to Ansari’s complaint, former Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha, gangster-turned-politician and BJP leader Brajesh Singh, BJP’s UP legislator Sushil Singh, former IG of Special Task Force Amitabh Kant and a senior official of Ministry of Home Affairs (UP) had devised a plan to eliminate him within jail and the serial poisoning is part of the plot.
He had begged the court to establish a medical board to oversee his overall care and to order an investigation into the entire incident. He urged the court to pass necessary instructions for his protection as well.
Judge Srivastava had instructed the Banda district jail superintendent to make sure that Mukhtar has an “adequate and proper” medical examination and medical facilities in accordance with the jail manual, acknowledging the grave accusations included in the application.
The court however resent him to the jail where he was found unconscious in the washroom of his cell on Thursday.
Ever since Yogi assumed the CM office in 2017, there has been clamor that Muslim dons like Atiq Ahmed and Mukhtar Ansari would be pulverized.
Afzal said that when news of Mukhtar’s hospitalization was broken to the family, his son Umar requested to be allowed to see his father, but the jail and police officials didn’t permit. “Only his body that bore several marks of ‘unusual condition’ was handed over to the family,” said Afzal.
He added that when Mukhtar was admitted to the same hospital in the same conditions (vomiting, stiffening of muscles, loose motions and acute weakness) a few days back, he was granted a 5-minute meeting with his brother. “In the brief chat, he told me that his dinner was mixed with poison and that there were clear indications that his assassination had been finally planned,” he said.
A journalist, who reached Ansari’s house, obtained an audio clip that contained the last phone conversation between Mukhtar, his younger son Umar and his elder son Abbas’ wife Nikhat. He can be heard in the audio that his soul was leaving his body as the poison in his body was robbing him of power to keep both body and soul together. He even regretted that he couldn’t go to Hajj as he had wished to all his life.
Though the official bulletin from the Banda Medical Hospital cited only “cardiac arrest” as the reason for Mukhtar's deaths, some unnamed officials had called “fasting during Ramadan” as the cause of his death. A section of the media began to run this as breaking news.
However, sense prevailed later as this could exacerbate religious sentiments and the logic was understood that fasting cannot lead to vomiting and loose motions, or subsequent death.
Several politicians, including Samajadi Party Chief Akhilesh Yadav, RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, AIMIM Chief Asaduddin Owaisi and Bahujan Samaj Party Chief Mayawati have called for a probe into the dreaded gangster’s family’s allegations.
On Friday afternoon, March 29, a post-mortem of Mukhtar’s body was conducted and the report mentions “cardiac arrest” as the cause of his death.
Death and Politics
Three years earlier when Mukhtar Ansari was shifted from a Punjab jail to UP prison, his entire journey was telecast live by the media and there were frequent speculations that he would be killed in a police encounter which the police lexicon under hardline Hindutva UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath calls “gaadi palat gayee” (the van overturned). The van however, didn’t overturn in Ansari’s case.
But his and family’s fortunes took a sharp turn. Their properties in Lucknow and Ghazipur were seized and bulldozed. Members of his family, like his son Abbas (also a politician), his wife and other relatives were booked under several trumped up charges.
He was convicted in 6 cases, making him the most convicted gangster of India. It meant that he had to stay in jail for the rest of his life.
Mukhtar, however, was able to retain his clout and his family was still the nerve-center of Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb and politics. His brother won parliamentary polls from Ghazipur in 2019, despite a surge in saffron sentiments. His son Abbas won the Assembly polls in 2022.
But the project to dismantle Mukhtar was underway. As two other Muslim names in the world of crime and politics – Mohammed Shahabuddin and Atiq Ahmed – were killed (in case of Shahabuddin, he was officially declared to have succumbed to Covid), Ansari knew his was the next turn.
The death of Mukhtar will be a setback to this fight and the political clout of the Ansaris, a fate which seems to be befalling all prominent Muslim political families in India.
The police first came for his “gang” and his henchmen began to be murdered, even inside jail and court. His chief lieutenant Munnaj Bajrangi was killed in the Baghpat jail near New Delhi. His two aides Merajuddin and Mukeem Kala were shot dead by another gangster inside Chitrakoot jail in UP.
Gangster Sanjeev Maheshwari alias Jeeva, another aide of Mukhtar Ansari, was shot dead by an assailant inside the court premises in Lucknow in broad daylight.
Meanwhile, the police nabbed around 292 of his other “accomplices.” Around 186 of them are lodged in various jails across India.
The Yogi government also seized properties worth crores linked to Ansari or his aides across the state and broke the financial backing that supported the “criminal empire” that formed the financial pivot of his family’s politics and philanthropy.
The root of enmity between Yogi Adityanath and Mukhtar Ansari dates back to 2005, when Yogi’s visit, then a firebrand Hindutva leader, had triggered communal riots in Mau – the constituency of Mukhtar. Ansari had played a prominent role in preventing the spread of violence. Pictures of him atop his Jeep placating the crowd, and even standing before rioters made him a lauded hero.
He was nevertheless imprisoned for his role in the riots. A litany of cases was registered against him and he remained behind bars till his death.
His death, as his life, according to Kubool Ahmed, a Delhi-based political analyst, will be mired in politics. “While he was alive, his family benefitted from his popularity as a gangster who enjoyed the status of Robin Hood because of his pro-people stances. His death will be reaped by the BJP whose social media army is already weaving a narrative that another Muslim strongman has been buried,” he said.
Ever since Yogi assumed the CM office in 2017, there has been clamor that Muslim dons like Atiq Ahmed and Mukhtar Ansari would be pulverized. While Atiq along with his brother was killed in police custody in front of media persons on live television, Mukhtar has been “killed” sans television coverage.
Ahmed added that the Ansaris had always been recognized as socialist-secularist politicians, and had been winning from the areas where Muslims only constitute 10-15% of the electorate. Backward and working class Hindus have been the backbone of the public support for them, he said.
The death of Mukhtar will be a setback to this fight and the political clout of the Ansaris, a fate which seems to be befalling all prominent Muslim political families in India.
“Ansaris worked for the cause of the poor that constitute more than 85% of the electorates in Ghazipur and Mau. During his stint as Mau MLA, he ensured that the electricity supply will be sufficient for the area so that weavers could run their handlooms. Ansaris not only espoused the cause of the backward, they also taught the locals to fight against the bhumihars (landlords) and local chieftains who had been exploiting the masses for long,” said Ahmed.
The death of Mukhtar will be a setback to this fight and the political clout of the Ansaris, a fate which seems to be befalling all prominent Muslim political families in India. The community is facing a steep downward spiral. Nobody knows how deep it will descend.
Other Reactions
While Muslims reacted with shock to the news of Ansari’s death, some such as Chitra Tripathi of Aaj Tak television questioned the silence of the people over his criminal record. “He was convicted and named in a series of highly dreaded criminal acts like a broad daylight murder of former BJP leader Krishnanand Rai. Rai’s teenage son and widow had to run from pillar to post to get justice. Don’t the Rais’ sentiments matter to people?” she said.
An official from the UP government called this correspondent to ask whether it’s been confirmed that the Yogi government was responsible for having Mukhtar eliminated. When he was told not yet, he proceeded to ask, “Why mostly Muslims are feeling like such? He was a criminal-politician. He must have done favors to the poor. Politicians do so, and some of their acts are really admirable. Why should people glorify an outlaw?” he asked.
Kubool Ahmed also raised a pertinent question about the Ansaris. “Did they ever try to promote other Muslim politicians of the area? No. It was only their family that they fielded candidates from in the Assembly and parliamentary polls. Sibgatullah Ansari, Afzal Ansari, Mukhtar Ansari, Shoeb Ansari, Abbas Ansari and now perhaps even Mukhtar’s son Umar will make an entry. It’s all about the Ansaris,” he said.