Gangster Vikas Dubey killed in encounter in UP
   Date :11-Jul-2020

Vikas Dubey killed _1&nbs
 Police and media at the encounter site where gangster Vikas Dubey was killed when he allegedly tried to escape from the spot following an accident near Kanpur on Friday morning. (PTI)
 
KANPUR (UP) :
 
Vikas Dubey was shot dead after he snatched a pistol from a cop and opened fire while trying to flee after the car carrying him from Ujjain overturned near Kanpur
 
Six policemen injured in accident and encounter
 
Oppn parties target UP Govt after encounter 
 
GANGSTER Vikas Dubey was shot dead on Friday by police, who claim he was trying to flee after the car carrying him from Ujjain overturned on an isolated stretch of the highway on the outskirts of the city. The SUV met with the accident at Bhaunti in Kanpur district, toppling on the road which was slippery after the rains, police claimed. The car was part of a small convoy of police vehicles. However, the UP Special Task Force (STF) has claimed that a herd of cows and buffaloes suddenly appeared before the vehicle and this caused the accident, following which he tried to escape but was shot dead. Police said the gangster snatched a pistol from one of the policemen injured in the accident and was shot when he opened fire while trying to flee.
 
Six policemen, including two from the Special Task Force, were hurt in the accident and the exchange of fire around 6 am, an official said. Dubey was the sixth man to die in a police encounter after the ambush he allegedly masterminded in Kanpur’s Bikru village past midnight on July 2, killing eight policemen who had come to arrest him. Madhya Pradesh police arrested Vikas Dubey outside the Mahakal temple in Ujjain on Thursday morning. He was handed over to an Uttar Pradesh police team late in the evening. Kanpur Range Inspector General Mohit Agarwal said Dubey fled from the car with an injured policeman’s pistol. He was chased and surrounded by policemen and was asked to surrender. When he started firing with an “intention to kill”, police opened fire in self-defence, Kanpur police said. A press release said he was immediately taken to a hospital, where he died during treatment. Ganesh Shankar VidhyarthiMedical College principal Dr R B Kamal said he was brought dead to the hospital.
 
“Dubey sustained four bullet injuries, three in the chest and one in the hand,” he told reporters. Two policemen also suffered wounds, one in the arm and the other in the hand. Dubey’s post-mortem was conducted by a panel of doctors. He had tested negative for coronavirus, the doctor said. However, no one has so far turned up to claim the body, hours after he was killed in a ‘encounter’. It was learnt that the mother of Vikas Dubey had refused to visit Kanpur from Lucknow to receive the body after post-mortem. She has also not talked to the media after the encounter at Bhaunti in Bara police circle, around 30 km from Kanpur. Hours later, Dubey’s body was cremated at the Bhairon Ghat in Kanpur.
 
Many women had also reached Bhairon Ghat to attend the funeral. It is being said that the police had also brought Dubey’s wife and son to perform the last rites. Hours before the encounter, an advocate had filed a petition in the Supreme Court seeking a direction to Uttar Pradesh Government and police to ensure that he is not killed. Uttar Pradesh’s Inspector General (Civil Defence) Amitabh Thakur had also apprehended possibility of Dubey’s death, a day before it happened. “Vikas Dubey has surrendered. It is possible he might try to escape from the custody of the UP police tomorrow and get killed. With this, the Vikas Dubey chapter will end,” he had tweeted in Hindi. Questions were being raised over the police version, challenging the account of the attempted escape of a gangster who had made no attempt to flee when nabbed near Ujjain’s Mahakal temple a day earlier.
 
There was also some scepticism over the possibility of someone managing to snatch a policeman’s weapon and then extricating himself from an overturned vehicle. There were allegations that the media trailing the police convoy was stopped for a few minutes before the encounter took place. Video clips also appeared to show Dubey sitting in a different car when the convoy set out from Ujjain. The UP police have denied any switching of cars and said the media may have been stopped for checks. Curious crowds hovered around the spot where Vikas Dubey was shot dead for most of the day on Friday, even when all there was left to see were bluish smudges on a dirt road.
 
Opposition parties targeted the BJP Government in Uttar Pradesh after the encounter. Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati demanded a Supreme Court-monitored probe into the encounter as well as the ambush in which eight policemen died last week. Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said the criminal is now gone and asked what about those who had “protected” him. Her party has demanded a judicial probe in the entire Vikas Pandey episode. Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav said it was not the car that had toppled but the encounter had saved the State Government from toppling, had facts come to light. Eight policemen, including Deputy Superintendent of Police Devendra Mishra, had died in a hail of bullets from the rooftops in Dubey’s Bikru village in Chaubeypur area of Kanpur on July 3.