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