‘Police team headed unprepared into trap laid by Dubey’

LUCKNOW: Neither equipped with any arms or ammunition nor anticipating that they would face an "encounter-like" situation in Kanpur's Bikhru village, police personnel headed unprepared towards the trap laid by gangster Vikas Dubey at his mansion, said a policeman who survived the ambush in which eight of his colleagues were killed. Speaking to reporters, Kaushalendra Pratap Singh, the station officer of Bithoor police station in Kanpur district who was injured in the savage attack on a police team, recalled the events of the intervening night of Thursday-friday that unfolded like a gangster film. Dubey's men were fully prepared. Each of them had weapons. They were using semi-automatic weapons. In single shot weapons there is a time gap between two shots," he said, adding that there were at least 15-20 people firing at the police team.

On the other hand, all of us did not have 'aslaahaa' (arms and ammunition), Singh told media persons from the private hospital in Kanpur where he is currently recuperating.

The SO said Dubey's gang had been briefed about the imminent police raid and made preparations, even arranging the lighting in such a manner that the policemen had to face darkness .

"They had made arrangements in such a way that the focus of the light was on us, and not on them. We could not see them," Singh said.

The station officer went on to say that his police station had received a phone call and was asked to accompany a raid team from the Chaubeypur police station.

In the matters of neighbouring police stations, we help each other. We left at around 12.30 am and joined SO Chaubeypur. The police team which had gone there comprised Circle Officer Bilhaur, SO Shivrajpur and police force from Bithoor and Chaubeypur police stations. We parked our vehicles almost 200-250 metres from Dubey's house.

He said when they reached outside Dubey's house, a JCB was placed as an obstruction in such a way that only one person could move to the other side. As soon as we crossed the JCB parked near his house, a spray of bullets was unleashed on us, he said.