Ganster Sanjeev Maheshwari alias Jeeva, a close associate of Mukhtar Ansari was shot dead outside a civil court in Lucknow on Wednesday.
The assailant disguised himself as a lawyer was apprehended. Some lawyers pelted stones at the police. Some of them were injured.
The assailant opened fire in which some others were injured. They have been shifted to a hospital. After being shot at Jeeva fainted and fell on the floor in a pool of blood.
Jeeva was a notorious criminal in Western Uttar Pradesh. He has ties to the Mukhtar Ansari and Munna Bajrangi gangs. He was imprisoned in Lucknow for several days before being transported to court to appear in the case.
Jeeva alleged a danger to his life after Munna Bajrangi’s murder inside Baghpat jail in 2018. His role in the murder of BJP MLA Krishnanand Rai came to light. Rai, an MLA representing Ghazipur’s Mohammadabad constituency, was blasted with bullets in 2005 along with six others in Ghazipur by a group of gunmen equipped with AK-47 assault rifles. In the FIR, Mukhtar Ansari and his brother Afzal Ansari were mentioned as conspirators. Jeeva was also engaged in the 1997 assassination of former UP minister Brahma Dutt Dwivedi. In 2003, a CBI court convicted him and former MLA Vijay Singh to life imprisonment.