Photos | Juvenile home to jail: A school killer turns leading don in Haryana underworld

The 28 February acquittal of a bus conductor in last year’s murder of a schoolboy in Gurgaon has turned focus on to another accused, a juvenile. HT traces back to 2007 when Akash Yadav, another teenager shot his classmate at a school and finds that he is now a leading don in Haryana’s underworld.

Updated on: Mar 05, 2018 11:38 AM IST

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Akash Yadav seen with a gun at his brother’s marriage in 2013. On November 11, 2007, Akash Yadav, 14, the son of a real-estate dealer in Gurgaon, took his father’s 0.32 Harrison pistol to his private school and shot a classmate to settle a score. He was sentenced to three years in a juvenile observation home. Now 24, and leading a criminal gang, he has spent three years across two jails in Haryana for his last alleged murder. (HT Photo)

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Abhishek Tyagi (C), Akash Yadav’s victim and classmate. As Azad Singh returned from consulting an astrologer specializing in stolen objects regarding his gun, he received a call from his sons’ school informing him that Akash had shot his classmate after classes had ended. Two bullets hit Abhishek in the forehead and two in the chest. By the time his parents reached the hospital, Abhishek had died. (HT Photo)

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Akaksh (R) in a 2007 photo with his brother Sumit. The feud between Abhishek and Akash was over a girl Sumit maintains. With few having heard of school shootings in India, conversation soon revolved around the effects of “new, property-driven wealth” and “modernity” on the minds of these children. On December 11, 2007 the court sent Akash to Faridabad’s juvenile observation home for three years. (HT Photo)

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A medal that Abhishek Tyagi won in a school athletic meet in 2007. His family continues to think their son was killed because he was better than Akash at sports. “He had beaten Akash at a football match just a few days before the incident. They had clashed with each other after. The school had to mediate and make them shake hands.” said Abhishek’s father Ravinder Tyagi. (Parveen Kumar / HT Photo)

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A view of the house Akash built for his family in Gurgaon’s Bamdoli Village. While neither Akash or his family speak openly about his experience in the observation home, Akash survived by befriending an older hitman and emerged seen as a leader. Several attempts at returning to education failed once schools learnt of his past, and slipping in and out of depression, Akash at 19, decided to form his own extortion gang. (Parveen Kumar / HT Photo)

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Azad Yadav also served a year for keeping an unlicensed weapon with a witness saying he saw him teach Akash how to fire a gun. The family claims Akash runs a gang with a conscience –No robbery, no dacoity, only extortion. Akash says it was only to “settle personal rivalries”. According to police and jail records, however, from 2007 to 2015, the gang had been charged with about a dozen criminal cases. (Parveen Kumar / HT Photo)

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Long before he shot dead a classmate, an astrologer told Kamlesh, her son will be ‘known’ in official circles, roam in government vehicles and eat at its expense. She said, “I had never imagined that ‘sarkari gaadi’ will be a police van and that ‘sarkari khana’ will be prison food.” Back in jail, Akash has a murdered cousin’s revenge on his mind. “I can’t leave this world now. If I don’t kill them, they will kill me,” he said. (Parveen Kumar / HT Photo)