Booked under Pocso in 2016, Yadav was in jail for 6 months

LUCKNOW: Vijay Yadav (24) who shot at jailed gangster Sanjeev Maheshwari Jeeva has two criminal cases, one of them under Pocso for allegedly raping a minor.

Much like the killers of another gangster Atiq Ahmed and his brother, Yadav is a loner and of late would barely interact with his family members. His mobile phone was switched off for the past several days, his younger brother told TOI. As per police records, he was booked under Pocso for raping a minor in Azamgarh in 2016 and had to spend six months in jail. The case was closed two months ago with mutual consent. He was booked again in Jaunpur in 2021 for violating Covid norms.

His younger brother, Satyam Yadav, a class 11 student, in an exclusive chat with TOI, said that Vijay led a very reclusive life.

He said that his brother had lost interest in studies after passing class 10 but then his father, Shyama Yadav, a farmer, thrashed him for not studying further. Later, in the second year of B Com he suddenly left with his friend Kallu to Khopoli area in Raigad district of Maharashtra in 2021 to work in a pipe company.

“He rarely called us even as my mother Nirmala Devi cried to talk to him but Bhaiyaji never bothered,” he said. On March 12, 2023, Vijay suddenly returned to the village and apprised us that he has left job and now is in search of another one. He then joined a pipe-laying firm in Lucknow. “Our last interaction is on May 11, at a marriage of a relative in Jaunpur and after that his phone is switched off,” he said. An inconsolable Nirmala Devi told TOI that all her efforts to search a girl for Vijay failed. Satyam said that his eldest brother Swatantra Yadav works in Delhi with a private automobile company. “We all have our profiles on social media , but Vijay Bhaiya never liked it,”he added.