Ghazipur (Uttar Pradesh): The last rites of gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari were concluded peacefully on Saturday according to his brother Afzal Ansari.
Ansari was laid to rest at Mohammadabad, in the Ghazipur district of Uttar Pradesh, amid tight security.
"Everything concluded peacefully," Ansari told reporters after participating in the last rites.
"A crowd had gathered in large numbers (to pay their last respects). There were some problems due to overcrowding," he said.
Following a postmortem, the body of Ansari was brought to his Ghazipur residence on Friday night amid heavy police deployment.
Ansari died in a hospital at Banda, Uttar Pradesh, on Thursday. His family, however, claimed that he was "given poison in the food."
According to the official release from the hospital, Ansari was brought to the hospital around 8:25 pm on Thursday. A team of nine doctors attended to him before he died, the release added.
Sibgatullah Ansari, Mukhtar Ansari's elder brother, claimed on Friday that the administration did not inform him and that he learned about his brother's death through the media.
Meanwhile, a three-member team will conduct a magisterial investigation into the death of Ansari.The Chief Judicial Magistrate Banda issued orders concerning the judicial probe. Officials said a panel of two doctors will do the post-mortem, which will be videographed.
In April 2023, Mukhtar Ansari was convicted and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment for the murder of BJP MLA Krishnanand Rai by an MP-MLA court. He was sentenced to life in prison on March 13, 2024, in a case related to the use of forged documents for obtaining an arms licence in 1990.
