Mukhtar Ansari was subjected to slow poisoning in jail, Umar Ansari, the son of the gangster-turned-politician who died of cardiac arrest at a hospital in Uttar Pradesh's Banda, alleged early Friday.
Thousands of people from Ghazipur district and nearby areas turned up to attend the last rites of Mukhtar Ansari who died of cardiac arrest in Banda on Thursday.
Keeping up his tradition of celebrating the festival with soldiers, Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Sir Creek near the Indo-Pak border in Gujarat's Kutch district and offered sweets to jawans.
The gangster-politician was booked in 65 criminal cases ranging from murder to extortion and was elected an MLA five times on the tickets of different political parties.
As the 'Delhi Chalo' agitation of farmers entered the third day on Thursday, two key border points between Delhi and Haryana remained closed for traffic, while security personnel in anti-riot gear conducted drills and mock exercises to ensure their fool-proof preparation.
The Delhi Police directed security personnel deployed at Delhi's Tikri, Singhu and Ghazipur border points to stay alert and conducted mock drills on Tuesday, a day ahead of protesting farmer's proposed march towards the national capital.
Security personnel have been rushed to the village to maintain law and order, they said adding police and Rapid Action Force personnel continued to patrol the streets of the town.
On Sunday, the city police removed two huge cement barriers for those commuters who walk towards Delhi using a small passage at the Singhu and Tikri borders.
Ansari's brother Afzal said they do not trust either the postmortem or the viscera reports.
The Lok Sabha Secretariat on Thursday revoked the disqualification of Bahujan Samaj Party leader Afzal Ansari as a member of the Lower House after the Supreme Court conditionally suspended his conviction in a Gangsters Act case.
A total of 78 Muslims were in the fray in the Lok Sabha elections this year, a significant drop from the last polls when 115 Muslim candidates were fielded by various parties.
Ansari's family has alleged that he died due to "slow poisoning" in the jail.
As the final hooter rang through the Yves-du-Manoir Stadium, sealing the Indian hockey team's bronze medal triumph, an electrifying wave of emotions swept through the families of the victorious players.
The enormous dump -- estimated to be as high as a 15-storey building -- looms like a dark mountain on the side of NH24, a busy highway that connects Delhi to Uttar Pradesh.
The youth -- their dreams of government jobs unfulfilled -- are voicing their frustration.
The Delhi Police has already stocked up a large number of tear gas shells and ordered 30,000 more from the BSF's Tear Smoke Unit (TSU) located at Tekanpur in Madhya Pradesh's Gwalior, an official said.
Jailed gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari was admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) at a hospital in Uttar Pradesh's Banda district early Tuesday with a complaint of abdominal pain.
Six weather stations across Delhi recorded over 100 mm of rain in a single day, the India meteorological department (IMD) said on Thursday, categorising it as an "extremely intense spell".
With protesting farmers seeking to march to the national capital, security remained tight on Wednesday with personnel deployed in huge numbers and barricades regulating movement in central Delhi and at border points with Haryana, which can cause hardships to commuters.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday dubbed the electoral bonds as the 'world's biggest extortion scheme' and alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the 'champion of corruption'.
The case under the Gangsters Act was registered against Ansari at the Karanda police station in 2010 following the murder of Kapildev Singh, a teacher, and an attempt on the life of Meer Hasan, a trader, both in 2009.
While Justice Kant and Bhuyan delivered the majority verdict, Justice Datta dismissed Ansari's appeal against the Allahabad high court order.
A day after Ansari's burial, police constable Faiyaz Khan, posted at a police station in Lucknow, allegedly made certain comments in favour of the gangster-politician on his WhatsApp status and also raised doubts over his death.
Authorities in New Delhi intensified security arrangements on Tuesday to stop the farmers' march from entering Delhi as the Singhu and Tikri borders were shut while the Red Fort complex was closed temporarily after peasants on their way to the national capital clashed with the police at the Shambhu border between Haryana and Punjab.
Gandhi said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the "champion of corruption".
From putting up a decent performance in the last Lok Sabha polls in Uttar Pradesh winning 10 seats stitching an alliance with arch rival Samajwadi Party, Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party drew a blank in the current general elections, dealing a severe blow to its reputation of representing the voice of Dalits in the state.
Saturday's voting will mark the end to the marathon polling process that began on April 19 month and has already covered 486 Lok Sabha seats in 28 states and Union territories.
Ahsan Ullah Khan, the additional district and session judge of the MP-MLA court in Sonbhadra, also imposed a fine of Rs 10 lakh on Gond which would be used in the rape survivor's rehabilitation.
'The Mulayam government pressurised officials, IG-Range, DIG, and SP-STF were transferred, even I was made to resign within 15 days'
In view of the farmers' protest and march to Parliament, the Delhi police started preparations to check the advancing farmers' march beforehand, an officer said.
Akhilesh's fielding candidates from a broad spectrum of castes, not just Yadavs, and with the BJP losing in several seats in Purvanchal, suggests that smaller OBC communities shifted from the BJP to the SP in the region.
A team of three Union ministers will hold talks on Monday with a delegation of farmer leaders, who are planning to march towards Delhi to press for their demands.
The best-case scenario is that the BJP will top out at around 50 seats in UP -- a drop of 12 from the 62 it had won in 2019. Taken in tandem with Maharashtra and Karnataka, this is what is likely to put paid to the BJP's ambitions of a third term for Modi, argues Prem Panicker.
The brothers were booked under the UP Gangsters Act in connection with the murder of the then BJP MLA from Ghazipur, Krishnanad Rai, on November 29, 2005 and the kidnapping-murder of Varanasi-based trader Nand Kishore Rungta in 1997.
The BJP had registered a one-sided victory on all the 17 SC-reserved seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. But in 2019, out of these 17 seats, it lost Nagina and Lalganj seats to the Bahujan Samaj Party.
Lok Sabha constituencies that sprung a surprise in the 2024 polls.
Few in Varanasi expect the result to be different from 2014 and 2019. The only point of interest is whether Narendra Modi will increase his winning margin against his rivals.
Delhi Police has given permission to the farmers to hold their 'Kisan Mazdoor Mahapanchayat' with the condition of gathering not exceeding to 5,000, no tractor trolleys, no march at the Ramlila Maidan, and made elaborate security arrangements that may lead to a heavy traffic jam in the national capital on March 14, officials on Wednesday said.
"We were shown 25 bodies that were badly burnt. Now it it expected that we will be shown more bodies on Friday or Saturday. The rules here (in Nepal) are different due to which the process of handing over the bodies will take time," Abhinash Kushwaha, brother of one of the deceased Abhihesk Kushwaha, told PTI over phone from Nepal.
The police deployed tear gas and water cannons for a second day to stop the farmers from marching to Delhi.
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