The Wire Staff 
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday (July 15) issued notice on the petition of late politician Mukhtar Ansari’s son Umar Ansari that his father was poisoned in jail and denied treatment which led to his death.
A bench of Justices Hrishikesh Roy and S V N Bhatti issued the notice and also recorded the submission of Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal, who appeared for the petitioner, reported The Indian Express.
Sibal told the court that Ansari, who passed away in March this year, died as a result of specific action taken by the jail authorities.
“It was not a death simpliciter, but was the result of specific action taken by the jail authorities. All we can say is…what we feared, happened…the man was sent back to the jail…this is shocking,” Sibal told the bench, reported The Indian Express.
Sibal told the court that there should be some inquiry into the matter. Additional Solicitor General KM Nataraj said that the original petition was filed seeking transfer of Mukhtar Ansari to any jail outside Uttar Pradesh along with protection for him.
Nataraj asked for four weeks to file response to the fresh notice.
With Ansari’s death on March 28 – his family has alleged he was poisoned at the behest of the state government – most of the focus has been on his criminal record of 65 FIRs, conviction in eight cases in the last 1.5 years and the suspicious circumstances leading up to his hospitalisation and demise.
Ever since the BJP came to power in 2017, Ansari was placed at the centre of the government’s so-called “zero tolerance policy” as it unleashed a wave of terror against alleged mafia and those designated by it as “gangsters”.