New Delhi: Gangster Vikas Dubey, who was arrested from Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh Thursday for the killing of eight policemen in an ambush in Kanpur on 3 July, was shot dead by the police in an alleged encounter Friday morning. According to the police, the Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (STF) was bringing him back to Kanpur from MP when Dubey tried to flee after snatching a weapon from one of the officers escorting him, leading to his “encounter”.
The police claimed Dubey tried to flee after the car he was being transported in overturned on the highway at Sachendi border near Kanpur.
Vikas was arrested Thursday after a six-day manhunt ended at the famous Mahakal temple in Ujjain. He had been reportedly spotted by security guards of the temple. The UP Police had put a bounty of Rs 2.5 lakh on his head, which was later doubled to Rs 5 lakh.
Here is a timeline of the events that have unfolded since the early hours of 3 July.
* Eight police personnel including a circle officer (CO) killed and seven others injured in an ambush when a police team went to arrest Vikas Dubey on the intervening night of Thursday (2 July) and Friday (3 July) at Bikaru village in Chaubepur area of Kanpur.
* 3 July (Friday): Dubey’s uncle Prem Prakash Pandey and cousin Atul Dubey gunned down in an alleged encounter.
* 4 July (Saturday): Dubey’s accountant Jay Vajpayi, who had allegedly helped him flee the crime scene, arrested by the UP Police in Kanpur.
* On the same day, the state authorities demolish the gangster’s house with the same earth mover used by the criminals to block police vehicles arriving in Bikaru village. Two tractors and two SUVs of the gangster destroyed.
* Vinay Tiwari, the supervising officer of Chaubepur police station, suspended on the suspicion of tipping Dubey off about the police raid.
* 5 July (Sunday): Dubey’s aide Dayashankar Agnihotri alias ‘Kallu’ arrested by the UP Police from the Kalyanpur locality of Kanpur, after he was shot at in the leg. He later tells the police that Vikas got a tip off by someone from the police station.
6 July: A purported letter written by slain circle officer Devendra Mishra in March to the then Kanpur senior superintendent of police Anant Dev surfaced online and went viral. The letter was about the change of a section in a case registered against Dubey. Two old videos of Dubey, one believed to be from 2006 and the other from 2017, which had also gone viral on social media, bring the gangster’s alleged political connections into the spotlight. In his 2006 video, Dubey credited former assembly speaker Hari Krishan Srivastava as his “political guru”. In the 2017 video, Dubey said several politicians including BJP MLAs Bhagwati Prasad Sagar and Abhijeet Sanga helped him keep his name in the clear. Both the BJP leaders, however, denied Dubey’s claims.
* 7 July (Tuesday): UP STF DIG Anant Dev was transferred to the Provincial Armed Police (PAC) unit in Moradabad for not taking action against Vinay Tiwari when he was the SSP of Kanpur.
* The same day, the notorious gangster was reportedly spotted in a hotel in Haryana’s Faridabad. However, Dubey allegedly again fled before the police could nab him.
* 8 July (Wednesday): STF guns down Dubey’s close associate and bodyguard Amar Dubey in Hamirpur district of UP. Kanpur police arrests Vinay Tiwari on charges of conspiracy.
* 9 July (Thursday): Two more aides of Dubey, Kartikeya alias Prabhat and Praveen alias Bauwa Dubey, who were wanted in connection with the Kanpur ambush, killed in separate encounters in UP.
* 9 July: Dubey arrested in Ujjain. He had reportedly driven from Bikaru village in Kanpur to Faridabad in Haryana, and then to Kota in Rajasthan and finally to Ujjain, crossing three states. Hours later, UP STF arrests his wife Richa Dubey, their son and a helper. Richa is accused of helping Dubey in unlawful activities and was allegedly a part of the conspiracy that killed the eight policemen.
10 July (Friday): Vikas Dubey is killed in an ‘encounter’.
Also read: Vikas Dubey, a criminal for police but ‘dabang neta’ with clout in all parties for villagers
You missed out the PIL in SC which was filed after Dubey’s arrest and which expressed apprehension regarding his possible elimination in a staged encounter. Will be interesting to see how this goes now. One can probably bet on the police team getting hauled up a bit, ordering of a probe, and then life as usual.
There is little doubt that he was killed by the police. However, as usual, the media is missing the main issue. The destruction of the legal system is the reason why mobs and now the police take the law into the their own hands.
Imagine that he was going to be arrested and produced in court. The courts would start granting delays and eventually he would get bail. It would take 10-15 years for him to be convicted but then the high court would step in and a few more years would go by. If by some stroke of luck, he was still sentenced for his crimes, it would make its way to the highest (kangaroo) court in the land. These self appointed guardians would surely take 5-10 years just to put his case on the docket, even as they hear other cases on a 1 day notice. Even if he is convicted, they would then release him on compassionate grounds of old age. There are plenty of cases where this is the exact trajectory.
There is incompetence, tardiness and corruption at every level, including the highest. Virtually every major problem in Indian society be it crime or corruption or poverty can be traced to the failure of our judicial system.
He would have likely got a death sentence from the courts in any case. The threat was to his powerful patrons in the UP who could have got exposed. With the UP police conveniently managing to eliminate the complete gang, the political leaders who used these criminals for their own purposes can now breathe a sigh of relief.
This is really bad. There is no rule of law in killing a gangster. Same thing happened with Hyderabad rape accused. This is non-sense and white lie.
All journo’s should raise this issue. You cannot give police free hand like this as they will or definitely had become just another killer and they will feel its okay to kill people when you wear uniform. This is incorrect. Due process of justice should be followed in all cases. This is banana republic or what?
Has anyone noticed that for the past 3 days, there is not a single article in The Print that mentions Duffer-Donkey Gandhi, Mummy and any reference to the corrupt Pvt Ltd family Company.
It’s clear the majority community is against criminals and hence very little opposition to encounter. But imagine how the reaction was for sohrabuddin. Can you spot the difference in reaction