Mukhtar Ansari's son moves SC fearing threat to his father's life

Umar Ansari, the son of Mukhtar Ansari, moved the Supreme Court claiming that his father has received reliable information that his life is in danger and there is a conspiracy being hatched within the state establishment to assassinate him in the Banda jail in UP.

New Delhi: Gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari's son Umar Ansari moved the Supreme Court alleging that his father has received reliable information that his life is in grave danger and there is a conspiracy being hatched within the state establishment to assassinate him in the Banda jail in Uttar Pradesh. Umar has sought direction to transfer his father from the Banda jail to any jail outside. Uttar Pradesh is a state ruled by any party other than the BJP.

Umar also sought a direction for his father to be produced before the courts only through virtual conferencing. “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 involving several persons within the state establishment to assassinate him in the Banda jail”, said the plea.

The plea contended that anti-social elements in the state have been emboldened enough to commit murders within full public view and on live television, in the presence of media and the police such as in the case of Atique Ahmad. “It is clear that there is an emerging pattern in these custodial killings where persons belonging to the political opposition are the main targets”, said the plea.

Umar’s plea claimed that he is concerned for his father’s life and he has been constrained to approach the apex court with the sole aim of protecting the life of his father. “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 in some petty crime, produced before the court and then remanded in judicial custody. Then, they shall be taken to the Banda Jail where the petitioner’s father is currently lodged”, said the plea.

“This shall give the said persons the desired proximity to the petitioner’s father. After that, these hired killers will be provided access to arms inside the 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 colour of a fight between the inmates to give the entire incident the misleading cover of a ‘gang war’”, added the plea.

The plea contended that the murder of Atique Ahmad and his brother in full police protection, the visit of suspicious persons to his father’s jail barracks and finally compounded by the information received by the “petitioner of the impending assassination attempt against his father before the 2024 general elections and therefore the petitioner apprehends an imminent threat to his father’s life”.

Umar said his father is from a political party that is in opposition, politically and ideologically, to the ruling dispensation in the state and their family have been targets of persecution by the state.

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