UP Police nab Vikas Dubey’s aide, `1 lakh reward announced for tracing gangster
KANPUR/LUCKNOW: UP Police on Sunday arrested an accomplice of gangster Vikas Dubey, whose henchmen had killed eight police personnel at a village near Kanpur. Dayashankar Agnihotri (42) was injured in the leg during the pre-dawn encounter in Kanpur’s Kalyanpur area and was later admitted to the hospital. No policeman was hurt. Meanwhile, the Uttar Pradesh government on Sunday increased the reward on Dubey’s head from Rs 50,000 to Rs 1 lakh. A reward of Rs 25,000 was also announced for all the 20 persons who have been booked along with the main accused in the FIR. Raids are underway to nab the culprits.
Police also took into custody a sub-divisional officer (SDO) and another employee at an electricity sub-station, from where power supply was snapped ahead of the failed raid to arrest Dubey in Bikru village near Kanpur past midnight on Thursday.
An employee told police that power to the village was disconnected on the instructions of a caller who claimed to be speaking from the nearby Chaubeypur police station. Sources said the call came from a number at Chaubeypur police station, whose station officer Vinay Tiwari was earlier suspended as police tried to find out if he had tipped off the gangster about the planned raid.
After being taken into custody, Dayashankar Agnihotri told reporters that Vikas Dubey had got a call from the police station about the raid. Dubey then summoned his men to confront the police team, he said.
Police got a tip-off and tried to stop Agnihotri on the Kalyanpur-shivli road around 4.30 am when he opened fire at them. Police later recovered a countrymade pistol and two cartridges from him. He has been admitted at Lajpat Rai hospital.
Over 25 teams have carried out raids at hundreds of locations, including near the India-nepal border, and in other states, to track him down, police said.