Sanjeev Maheshwari: Gangster whose life in crime was bookended by violence

Notorious gangster Sanjeev Maheshwari was killed in a dramatic shooting inside a courtroom in Lucknow.

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.

Gangster Sanjeev Maheshwari.

Read here: Gangster Mukhtar Ansari's aide shot dead outside court complex in Lucknow

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.

Read here: Jeeva murder: Alleged assailant has two prior criminal cases

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.