Hunt for UP gangster Dubey ends in Ujjain
Arrested from temple; wife, son also in special task force net; two more aides killed in encounter
BHOPAL/LUCKNOW/KANPUR: Uttar Pradesh gangster Vikas Dubey was taken into custody outside a temple in Madhya Pradesh’s Ujjain on Thursday, ending a frantic and often frustrating manhunt for a fugitive behind one of the deadliest attacks on policemen in recent years.
In this six days since Dubey went underground, police in Uttar Pradesh killed at least five of his accomplices who were involved in the attack, demolished his sprawling bungalow, and arrested at least a dozen people, including his wife and son, and cops who aided his escape and shelter.
“Main Vikas Dubey hoon, Kanpur wala! (I am Vikas Dubey of Kanpur),” Dubey yelled out as he was being bundled into a police SUV in Ujjain.
In Lucknow, the Uttar Pradesh police acknowledged that chasing Dubey was a challenge. “We have found our most wanted, who is accused of killing eight policemen in Kanpur’s Bikru village… His arrest was a major challenge for us and we were chasing him continuously,” said UP director general of Police (DGP) Hitesh Chandra Awasthy in Lucknow.
As he remained on the run, the police increased the bounty on his head from ₹50,000 last week to ₹5 lakh. On several occasions, sleuths from the state police’s special task force (STF) came up empty, discovering his getaway vehicles and hideouts only after he would leave them.
The game of cat and mouse nearly turned in the police’s favour when he was spotted in
Faridabad on July 7, the first time his whereabouts were confirmed since he fled Kanpur, but he slipped away.
It was around this time that rumours spread about Dubey planning to surrender at a TV studio In Noida, forcing police to seal off the Film City area and begin checking commuters. By this time, Dubey is believed to have left NCR in a bus for Ujjain, according to what he told his interrogators, who are yet to corroborate the sequence of events.
The accomplice caught in Faridabad, identified as Prabhat, was killed on Thursday morning while being brought back to Kanpur, UP police officials said, adding that he was shot when he tried to snatch a cop’s weapon and escape. Later on Thursday, Dubey was handed over to the Uttar Pradesh police. Officials also arrested Dubey’s wife and one of his son, in addition to their domestic help.
The circumstances of his arrest were unclear, with a Madhya Pradesh minister saying he was caught by a policeman, while police officials, eyewitnesses, and an administration official saying he was spotted by locals and may have given himself up. “Our police was alert after the UP incident. A constable spotted him and alerted his colleagues. Later, he was arrested,” MP’s home minister Narottam Mishra told reporters in Bhopal.
LUCKNOW/BHOPAL: Alleging that gangster Vikas Dubey’s “safe exit” from Kanpur and the sequence of events leading to his arrest in Ujjain was suspicious, senior leaders from Opposition parties on Thursday demanded a high-level probe into the incident.
Dubey was arrested outside the Mahakal temple at Ujjan on Thursday, ending a six-day manhunt for the gangster accused of masterminding a deadly ambush on a police party outside his home in Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh.
Taking to Twitter, former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath said, “Such a big criminal whom the police are searching for day and night, his safe exit from Kanpur and arrival in Ujjain and later entry into the temple and the way he shouted to get himself arrested gives birth to a lot of suspicion. It hints at some protection and it should be probed.”
Congress’s Rajya Sabha MP Digvijaya Singh demanded that chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan order a judicial probe into Dubey’s arrest.
Senior Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra demanded a CBI probe to ascertain the facts about the “grant of protection” to Dubey. She also accused the BJP government in UP of “complete failure” in handling the case. “The UP government should conduct a CBI probe to ascertain all facts and bring out the links of protection to him,” she said.
Bahujan Samaj Party president Mayawati alleged that Dubey’s patrons were present in the Uttar Pradesh government and asked the state government to take strict action against them.
“The public is also waiting for the Uttar Pradesh government to ensure strict punishment at the earliest to all the government and political patrons and conspirators connected with Vikas Dubey in his heinous crimes,” she said in another tweet.
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav also raised questions regarding the arrest. “We hear that the main accused of the Kanpur case is now in police custody. If true, then the government should clarify whether this was surrender or arrest,” he tweeted..