Ram Vriksha Yadav, the man behind the Mathura violence, wields massive clout in the region. A resident of Ghazipur in eastern Uttar Pradesh, he first landed in Mathura on March 15, 2014 along with 200 supporters and sought two-day permission from the Mathura district administration for staying at Jawahar Bagh.
But under apparent political patronage, Yadav turned his bivouac into a permanent camp. He built a row of huts by encroaching on a sprawling 280 acres of Government land. Gradually, he became so powerful that nobody in the district administration dared to touch him.
Sources in the Mathura district administration told The Pioneer that district officials thought it prudent to keep away from him and took no steps remove the encroachment from Jawahar Bagh, considered to be the lung space of the lord Krishna’s birthplace.
Incidentally, there have been ten criminal cases registered against Yadav during the last two years. The cases include attacking police personnel on duty and occupying the Government land. After local administration failed to evict Yadav from Jawahar Bagh, local advocate Vijay Pal Tomar moved the Allahabad High Court for the removal of encroachment. Yadav challenged the High Court order but his plea was dismissed and he was slapped with a fine of Rs 50,000. The court ordered that he be removed from the place and the land should be taken by the district administration.
The Mathura Police was trying hard to get this prime land vacated but Yadav was not in a mood to oblige. Yadav has summoned criminals and history sheeters and was in possession of a huge of cache of arms and ammunition that included hand grenade, country made bombs, rifles, country-made pistols and cartridges, the sources added.
It is interesting to note that Yadav was once a disciple of Jai Gurudev and had tried hard to take his vast empire after his demise. Three factions had fought pitched battles to take control over the legacy of Jai Gurudev. Pankaj Yadav and Umakant Tiwari were two other claimants and ultimately it was Pankaj Yadav who took over the reins of Jai Gurudev’s movable and immovable assets worth thousands of crores.
Yadav, who was smarting from being pipped to the post by Pankaj Yadav, started strengthening himself by occupying 280-acre Jawahar Bagh. There were over 5,000 followers who are believed to have taken part in the bloody clash with the Mathura Police on Thursday night.
Insiders said that the violence is directly linked to the dispute among the supporters of Jai Gurudev, whose empire is estimated to be worth over Rs 12,000 crore. Jai Gurudev’s massive and opulent ashrams are situated on the Mathura-Delhi highway and in Etawah in Uttar Pradesh.
His empire includes land worth Rs 4,000 crore, a massive fleet of cars including several Mercedes and Plymouths worth over Rs 150 crore, and over Rs 100 crore in banks deposits.
Sources say the daily offerings made by his supporters at the ashrams are around Rs 10-12 lakh. Gurudev’s original name was Tulsidas Maharaj and he reportedly died in 2012.
Yadav’s splinter group, known as Swadheen Bharat Andolan not only clashed with the police on Thursday when the force tried to evict them from Jawahar Bagh but resorted to firing and hurled crude bombs resulting in the death of 24 people, including SP City Mukul Dwivedi and SO Santosh Yadav.