Notice issued by SC to amend petition on Umar Ansari's plea

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has issued a notice to the Uttar Pradesh government on the plea of Mukhtar Ansari's son Umar Ansari, seeking to amend the petition related to the circumstances of the death of the gangster-turned politician in jail.
A bench of Justices Hrishikesh Roy and SVN Bhatti issued a notice on Umar Ansari, the son of gangster-turned politician Mukhtar Ansari.
Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal for the petitioner submitted before the top court that Mukhtar had died in jail and urged that some inquiry be conducted on this. The court, however, said that they "can't bring him back."
Sibal submitted that there was an allegation that the food given to Mukhtar Ansari was given poisoned food in jail.
The senior advocate's submissions were recorded by the court.
Earlier, Mukhtar Ansari's son, Umar Ansari, moved the Supreme Court to seek his father's transfer from the Banda Jail to any jail outside Uttar Pradesh, apprehending an imminent and serious threat to this father.
The petitioner had mentioned various incidents that took place in Uttar Pradesh, including the Atiq Ahmad killing case.
He had also urged the top court to pass an appropriate direction to transfer his father, Mukhtar Ansari, from the Banda Jail to any jail outside Uttar Pradesh to any state that is ruled by any party other than the BJP. He had also given appropriate directions that his father should be produced before the courts only through video conferencing.
The petition read, "The petitioner's father is a well-known political figure in the state of Uttar Pradesh and has been a member of the of the Legislative Assembly for five consecutive terms from Mau constituency in Uttar Pradesh. As the Petitioner's father is from a political party that is in opposition, politically and ideologically, to the ruling dispensation in the State, the petitioner, the petitioner's father, brother and their family have been targets of persecution by the State," read the petition.
Additionally, the petition also said, "The State has consistently been taking a personally inimical position against the Petitioner's family, particularly his father, but now the petitioner's father has received reliable information that his life is in grave danger and there is a conspiracy afoot involving several actors within the state establishment to assassinate him in Banda jail."
"The petitioner's father has relayed this information to his son. Both petitioner and petitioner's father has been constrained to approach this to the court with the sole aim of protecting the life of his father. The petitioner apprehends a grave and imminent threat to his father's life and limb in Banda Jail. As per the information received by the petitioner through his father, the modus operandi of his assassination shall be one which is not novel but as has been used to carry out killings in jail in several other cases, the petition said.
Further, it said, "As per the information received from reliable sources within the police establishment, the persons who have been hired to assassinate the petitioner's father shall be arrested by the police or summoned on remand for some petty crime, produced before the court and then remanded to judicial custody. Then, they shall be taken to Banda Jail, where the Petitioner's father is currently lodged. This shall give the said persons the desired proximity to the Petitioner's father," the petition said.
"Thereafter, these hired killers will be provided access to arms inside jail and an opportunity by way of a lapse in security systems that they can take advantage of through complicit jail officials. The standard mode of operation is to give the attack the color of a fight between the inmates in order to give the entire incident the misleading cover of a 'gang-war'," it mentioned.
As mentioned above, this not-so-novel method of killing within the jail has already been used to cover the killing of one Meraj Ahmad, who was a co-accused with the petitioner's father in a case under Maharashtra Control of Organized Crimes Act and both were subsequently acquitted. Meraj Ahmad along with his associate Mukim Kala, was shot dead inside a high-security barrack of Chitrakoot District Jail in UP in May, 2021," the petition said.
The petitioner said that there is a disturbing trend of extra-judicial killings in the state which was seen in the various instances including Atiq Ahmad killing case and December 2019 under trial Shahnawaz murder case."
In April 2023, Mukhtar Ansari was convicted and sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment for the murder of BJP MLA Krishnanand Rai by an MP-MLA court.