CRIMINALS SHOOT 8 COPS ON RAID IN UP

KANPUR: Criminals owing allegiance to a dreaded gangster in Uttar Pradesh sprayed a volley of bullets on a team of policemen who went to raid their village in Kanpur Dehat district on Thursday night, killing eight including a deputy superintendent in a chilling 15-minute ambush, officials said.

The killings prompted a massive hunt for 48-year-old Vikas Dubey, a hardened criminal who faces 60 cases, and his group after they escaped Bikru village in the dark. Hours later, security personnel gunned down two people suspected gang members. Operations were underway to apprehend Dubey, who allegedly killed a senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader in 2001.

“None of those responsible for this heinous act will be spared, and the sacrifice of the slain policemen will not be allowed to go in vain,” chief minister Yogi Adityanath said, facing criticism from opposition leaders over the law and order situation.

Director general of police Hitesh Chandra Awasthi, who visited the ambush site along with other top officials, said the policemen fell victim to a conspiracy. “An earthmover machine was put there deliberately to stop their way, and in the darkness, they were attacked. This incident would not have happened without a well-planned conspiracy.”

The ambush on the 13-member police team began after they reached Bikru around 1:20am on Friday, after Rahul Tiwari, a resident of the village, filed an attempt to murder case against Dubey on Wednesday. Officials found the road leading to Dubey’s fortified one-storey house blocked. They got off their vehicles and decided to walk, but criminals began firing at them from the roofs of Dubey’s residence and the houses nearby, according to Dinesh Kumar P, Kanpur senior superintendent of police. The ambush continued for 15 minutes, killing the eight policemen and wounding seven people including a civilian.

Aas they ran for cover, criminals on the ground accosted them and snatched their weapons, according to local police officials who did not want to be named.

The four constables and a subinspector took shelter in a small toilet. They were the first to be killed. Devendra Mishra, a deputy superintendent of police and the officer leading the team, tried to hide in a house, which belonged to a relative of Dubey. He was attacked with an axe and then shot dead. Two police sub-inspectors were shot five times, according to the officials. By the time a wounded cop escaped the site and raised an alarm, the criminals — believed to be 20 in number — escaped, prompting a search operation involving about 3,000 personnel and the sealing of borders in all six districts in the Kanpur division.

“There was retaliatory firing, but criminals were at a height...eight of our men died,” said Jai Narayan Singh, Kanpur additional director general of police (ADG).

Around 7am, the police cornered two people — Dubey’s uncle, Prem Prakash Pandey, and his close aide, Atul Dubey — in the jungles of Kaashi Ram Nivada village, about 3km from Bikru, and shot them dead in a gunfight. Two personnel were wounded and a pistol said to have been looted in Bikru was recovered in this operation.

A police spokesperson said the weapons snatched in Bikru included an AK-47 rifle, an INSAS rifle, a Glock pistol and two .9mm pistols. Inspector general (special task force) Amitabh Yash said the weapon used in the initial attack was a rifle seized from Dubey by the police when they arrested him in Lucknow’s Krishna Nagar in 2017, according to news agency PTI. Forensic teams from Kanpur and Lucknow visited the crime scene and collected samples. Police announced ~50,000 reward for information leading to Dubey’s arrest. A FIR was filed against Dubey and 20 others.