Ghazipur (UP), March 31 : Member Parliament Afzal Ansari has said that his priority would be to exercise legal options and ensure justice for his deceased brother Mukhtar Ansari.

Talking to IANS on phone, a day after Mukhtar Ansari was laid to rest in Ghazipur, Afzal Ansari said, 'We possess sufficient evidence to prove that Mukhtar had been poisoned inside the Banda jail. More shocking was the behaviour of doctors who found it necessary to admit him in ICU on March 26 but suddenly decided that Mukhtar was fit enough to be discharged a few hours later.'

He further said, 'Despite being an MP, I was not allowed to talk to the principal of Banda medical college to know about my brother's actual ailment. We kept requesting doctors to alert us and refer Mukhtar to a higher facility in time, so that he can be given required treatment to save his life.'

He said that Mukhtar was taken back to his barrack when he could not stand on his feet and was falling unconscious at regular intervals.

'With all the evidence we have collected, we will sit with the team of our legal experts in a day or two to explore ways for seeking justice for him from the court. Mukhtar has been eliminated in a properly planned conspiracy,' he stated.

The MP said, 'I was punished in a Gangsters Act case despite the fact that I had been acquitted in the case, which was made base for booking me under the Act. I lost my membership from Parliament but the Supreme Court's order to suspend the punishment till disposal of my appeal in the apex court not only restored my membership of Parliament but also made me eligible to contest the 2024 LS poll.'

Afzal Ansari will be contesting the Ghazipur Lok Sabha seat on the Samajwadi Party ticket, and said that people of Ghazipur were with him in this hour of grief and crisis.

He had won the Mohammadabad Assembly seat in Ghazipur district four times between 1985 and 1996 on the CPI ticket and then won it again as SP candidate in 1996.

He contested Lok Sabha polls from Ghazipur seat on the SP ticket in 2004 and emerged victorious while in 2019, he retained it as a BSP candidate.

/IANS