On 7th June 2023, Mukhtar Ansari‘s close aide and gangster Sanjeev Maheshwari was shot dead in the Lucknow court premises by an assailant in the afternoon. The attacker came in the guise of a lawyer.
Maheshwari was brought from Lucknow district jail to the court to attend a hearing in a criminal case. When the hearing was going on and Maheshwari was present in the court, the assailant opened fire on him. Sanjeev Maheshwari aka Jeeva, who himself was a dreaded shooter, was booked in several other criminal cases.
The police have apprehended the individual disguised as a lawyer who carried out the assault. According to a witness, the attacker fired a total of six gunshots, resulting in Sanjeev Maheshwari’s death and injuries to two other individuals including a young girl. The injured were taken to the trauma centre for medical treatment, said the police.
Following the incident, angry lawyers attacked and police and pelted stones, resulting in injuries to several cops.
Sanjeev Maheshwari was also known as ‘Jeeva’. He hailed from Muzaffarnagar in north-western Uttar Pradesh. He was arrested in 2006 in connection with the murders of BJP MLA Krishnanand Rai and former UP minister Brahmadutt Dwivedi. Jeeva and former Samajwadi Party MLA Vijay Singh had been handed life sentences for the murder of Dwivedi. Jeeva was also involved in four other murders.
Sanjeev Maheshwari was involved in a series of serious crimes since 1995. He led an inter-state gang and faced charges in multiple cases, including murder, extortion, robbery, dacoity, kidnapping, and gangster activities. His name was associated with the kidnapping of a businessman’s son in Kolkata, where a ransom of two crore rupees was demanded. Additionally, Jeeva was implicated in the murders of legislative assembly members Brahm Datt Dwivedi and Krishnanand Rai, both linked to organized crime. As a result, Jeeva was incarcerated in Lucknow jail.
Jeeva was known to have a close association with mafia dons like Mukhtar Ansari and Prem Prakash Singh, also known as Munna Bajrangi. He was further accused of the assassinations of legislator Krishnanand Rai and former minister Brahmadutt Dwivedi. Following the murder of BJP legislator Krishnanand Rai, Munna Bajrangi, the primary suspect, was also killed in jail. Since then, security measures for Sanjeev Maheshwari, alias Jeeva, who was a co-accused in the case, were intensified.
