Mukhtar Ansari, a gangster from Uttar Pradesh, was charge-sheeted more than 35 years ago for possessing firearms illegally. After a long wait, he was sentenced to life imprisonment earlier this month. The news is that the gangster-politician died in jail on Thursday. The cause of death is a cardiac arrest.
National media reports said that his sympathizers gathered outside the residence of Ansari in Ghazipur and that paramilitary forces have also been deployed outside Banda Medical College. UP DGP Prashant Kumar has been quoted as saying that prohibitory orders under CrPC Section 144 have been imposed across UP following Ansari's death.
The demise of Ansari has brought in its wake a wave of celebratory social media posts by those who have borne the brunt of his activities under the lawless regime of the Mulayam and Akhilesh Yadav governments in UP. "One of India's most dreaded gangsters Mukhtar Ansari is dead. Condolences to members of his family whom we all know - former Vice President of India Hamid Ansari, senior journalist Javed Ansari, senior TV news anchor Gargi Rawat Ansari, and Sonia Gandhi's biographer Yusuf Ansari," wrote a pro-BJP social media user and columnist.
Ansari's association with the Samajwadi Party played a key role in the loss of its popular appeal in the Western part of UP in recent years. After the BJP rose to dominance in the State, goondaism almost disappeared on the streets of UP.
