Three history-sheeters, including members allegedly associated with don-turned-politician Muhtar Ansari, were killed in a shootout inside the district jail in Chitrakoot, about 350 kilometres from here, on Friday.
Merajuddin and Mukim alias Kala, members of Mukhtar's gang, and gangster Anshu Dixit exchanged several rounds of fire inside the jail on Friday morning. Both Merajuddin and Mukim were killed in the gun battle, according to police sources.
Ansari was currently lodged in Banda district jail, barely 75 kilometres from Chitrakoot.
A police team, which later entered the jail premises, surrounded Dixit and asked him to surrender but he opened fire at the cops. ''Dixit was gunned down in retaliatory firing by the cops,'' a senior police official said in Chitrakoot.
It was the second shootout in the jail after gangster Munna Bajarangi was shot dead by another criminal Sunil Rathi inside Baghpat district jail in the state three years ago.
It was not immediately clear how Dixit and the other two gangsters managed to get dozens of rounds of ammunition and pistols in jail.
UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath ordered an inquiry into the matter and sought a report from the director general of the prison, sources said.
The family members of Ansari expressed apprehensions that the latter was not 'safe' inside the jail. ''If a shootout can take place inside the jail, then no one is safe in the state,'' said a member of Ansari's family.
Published 14 May 2021, 14:24 IST