Notorious gangster Sanjeev Maheshwari, whose life in the criminal world was marked by violence and bloodshed, met an equally brutal end on Wednesday when he was killed in a dramatic shooting inside a courtroom in Lucknow in the presence of a posse of policemen, mediapersons and judicial officials.
Maheshwari, also known as Jeeva, had his first brush with the law when he abducted the owner of a dispensary where he was worked as a compounder, police officers familiar with the criminal’s activities said.
“Later, Maheshwari kidnapped the son of a Kolkata-based businessman and asked for ₹2 crore in ransom. Back in the 1990s, this ransom amount was mind-boggling. Subsequently, he joined the Nazim gang of Haridwar, and later, the Satendra Barnala gang,” a police officer said on condition of anonymity.
A total of 26 cases, ranging from murder and extortion to robbery and cheating, were registered against 48-year-old Maheshwari. He first came under the police radar when he was linked to the 1997 murder of Bharatiya Janata Party lawmaker Brahm Dutt Dwivedi, a second officer said. He was serving a life sentence in the case.
Along with gangster-turned politician Mukhtar Ansari and gangster Prem Prakash Singh alias Munna Bajrangi, Maheshwari was an accused in the murder of BJP MLA Krishnanand Rai, who was sprayed with bullets by a gang of assailants armed with assault weapons in Ghazipur district on November 29, 2005.
Police officers said that Maheshwari was a close aide of Ansari, who helped him climb up the ranks in the world of crime.
“Ansari was fond of state-of-the-art weapons and Maheshwari had a clever network to procure such weapons,” a third officer said.
