‘July 3 ambush was carefully planned’

KANPUR:The ambush by gangster Vikas Dubey and his group that killed eight police personnel on July 3 was the result of careful planning even as he planned his escape route, his aide Prabhat Mishra told the police while he was in custody, according to officials aware of the matter.

Mishra, who was arrested in Faridabad on Wednesday, snatched a pistol from a policeman and tried to escape while being brought back to Kanpur, the police said.

Two Special Task Force (STF) personnel were injured and Mishra killed in the exchange of fire on Thursday morning.

After the late-night ambush, Dubey spent more than a day at a friend’s house in Kanpur Dehat’s Shivli town, 3km from his Bikru village where the incident took place.

While the police were looking for him, he was busy planning his escape, Mishra said, according to officials who did not want to be named.

Officials said he could have got help at every step, from leaving to Shivli to reaching Ujjain. He covered 1,250km and crossed four states before his arrest in Ujjain.

“Without help, he could not have gone this far; we are pursuing some leads. It will become clear as to who helped him,” one of the officials said.

Dubey reached Shivli on a motorcycle as travel by car would have required him to go through the main roads, police said.

He reached Auraiya in an SUV made available to him by a resident of Mangalpur in Kanpur Dehat, Mishra said, according to officials.

Hitching multiple rides, an official said, Dubey reached Faridabad in the National Capital Region (NCR).

Although he initially planned to surrender in Uttar Pradesh, he changed his mind and chose Delhi. That plan did not materialise.

He sent his key shooter, Amar Dubey, back from Faridabad and asked him to reach Madhya Pradesh through the Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh. Police intercepted Amar in Hamirpur, and he was killed in an encounter when he tried to escape.

“He (Vikas Dubey) was buying time to let his contacts get their chance to facilitate his surrender,” said the official quoted above.