‘No one safe in jail’, Indian MP Gopal Yadav on Mukhtar Ansari’s death
Lucknow: Samajwadi Party MP Ram Gopal Yadav has said that the circumstances under which Mukhtar Ansari, a jailed Muslim politician from Uttar Pradesh, died are extremely worrying.
According to Kashmir Media Service, Mukhtar Ansari was declared dead on Thursday at Banda hospital in Uttar Pradesh after purportedly suffering a cardiac arrest. However, his family said 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 the state.
In a post on X, the Indian MP said, “The circumstances under which former MLA Mukhtar Ansari died are extremely worrying. He had already filed an application in court and expressed his fear of his murder by poison. In the current system, no one is safe in jail, in police custody, or at home. By creating an atmosphere of administrative terror, people are being forced to keep their mouths shut.”
Opposition leaders targeted the UP government after Umar Ansari, the son of the deceased, said that his father was given poison in the food.
RJD MP Manoj Jha said, “Uttar Pradesh has become a different sort of state now…As I said, when the difference between death and killing disappears, then it leads to lawlessness…”
Reacting to Ansari’s death, Samajwadi Party Chief Akhilesh Yadav said in a post on X, “Uttar Pradesh is going through the worst phase of government anarchy. This is zero hour of law and order in UP”.
Earlier, Bahujan Samaj Party Chief Mayawati said that the serious allegations by Mukhtar Ansari’s family regarding his death in jail require a high-level investigation so that the facts related to his death can be revealed.
