A close aid of Mukhtar Ansari shot dead outside the court
Sanjeev Maheshwari, 48, was charged with the murders of Brahm Dutt Dwivedi and Krishna Nand Rai, two BJP leaders. He was found not guilty in the 1997 murder of Dwivedi, but he was found guilty in the 2005 killing of Rai. Dwivedi is the one who is typically credited with aiding Mayawati in the 'guesthouse' event from 1995.
Close Aid of Mukhtar Ansari, Sanjeev Maheshwari shot dead outside the court in the state capital of Luckhnow. A police officer also got injured as a bullet pierced his leg. The shooter was dressed as a lawyer according to the bystanders.
“The incident took place around 3:30 pm. He was shot in the back. Two of our policemen were also injured. They are out of danger. A woman and her child were also injured. Sanjeev Jeeva was taken to a hospital where doctors declared him dead,” said Upendra Agarwal, Joint CP, Law and Order, Lucknow Police.
“The attacker has been arrested,” the officer said, adding that the question of multiple attackers is under investigation.
Reports say the lawyers present at the court managed to hold on to one of the attackers and handed him over to the police.
Sanjeev Maheshwari Jeeva, the son of Om Prakash and Kunti Maheshwari, was a native of Muzaffarnagar. He and his wife Payal have three kids and a daughter. Payal ran unsuccessfully for the RLD in the 2017 Muzaffarnagar Assembly election.
Sanjeev Maheshwari was accused in 24 instances, of which he was cleared in 17 cases, according to the police. In the Muzaffarnagar, Shamli, Hardiwar, and Farrukhabad areas, he was involved in murder, abduction, extortion, and dacoity crimes.
Maheshwari was found not guilty of the murders of then-BJP MLA Krishnanand Rai and six other people in 2019, along with co-defendants Mukhtar Ansari and his brother Afzal Ansari. In the case, every significant witness and eyewitness had gone hostile.
In the 2002 Assembly elections, Afzal Ansari was beaten by Rai, who was then the Mohammadabad MLA. On November 29, 2005, when several individuals with automatic and semi-automatic weapons waylaid them and fired upon his car, he was killed along with six other individuals.
On February 10, 1997, Brahm Dutt Dwivedi, a BJP MLA from Farrukhabad at the time, was assassinated. After attending a tilak ceremony in the City Kotwali neighbourhood of the Farrukhabad district, his father was assassinated, according to Sunil Dutt, who had previously informed the press in 2017 that he had been killed while he was in his car. The attack also claimed the lives of his driver Rinku and his gunner BK Tiwari.
Maheshwari and former Samajwadi Party MLA Vijay Singh were given life sentences in the case by the CBI court in Lucknow on July 17, 2003. The High Court heard a challenge to the verdict from both prisoners. The trial court’s decision was confirmed in 2017 by the Allahabad High Court’s Lucknow bench.
Brahm Dutt Dwivedi intervened on Mayawati’s behalf when SP miscreants approached her room in a Lucknow hotel.
Mayawati decided to stop supporting the SP-BSP coalition government, which had been in office since December 1993, on June 2, 1995.
