Gangster Mukhtar Ansari, facing conviction in eight cases, passed away on Thursday after suffering cardiac arrest.
As per jail officials, Ansari was admitted to Banda Medical College earlier in the day after he was found lying unconscious in his barrack.
The jail officials immediately spotted him and took him to the district hospital.
Earlier on Tuesday, Mukhtar was found unconscious and was referred to the district hospital. He had complained of pain in the abdomen and constipation. He was discharged after treatment in 15 hours.
Last week, Mukhtar’s lawyer Randheer Singh Suman had filed an application in a Barabanki court seeking proper medical examination alleging that ‘slow poisoning’ was being administered to him by Banda prison staff where he was presently lodged.
Ansari has faced convictions in eight cases within a mere 18-month span.
On March 13, Ansari received a life sentence in a legal matter concerning the acquisition of an arms license using counterfeit documentation in 1990.
This marked the eighth occasion in the last two years that the courts in Uttar Pradesh have found the former MLA guilty and imposed a sentence on him.
Additionally, in December 2023, the MP/MLA Court in Varanasi convicted Ansari for intimidating Mahavir Prasad Rungta, a key witness in the murder case of 26-year-old coal merchant Nand Kishor Rungta.
Consequently, Ansari was sentenced to five and a half years of rigorous imprisonment along with a fine of Rs 10,000.
Further intensifying his legal troubles, on October 15 of the previous year, the Enforcement Directorate took action against Ansari as part of a money laundering probe.
Assets including land, a building, and bank deposits totaling over Rs 73.43 lakh were attached by the agency.
Ansari had been elected as an MLA from the Mau constituency five times, including twice as a Bahujan Samaj Party candidate. He last contested the assembly polls in 2017.