Vikas Dubey the notorious gangster who caused the massacre of eight policemen in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, last week was killed in an encounter on Friday, according to police officials accompanying him on the journey from Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh to Kanpur. Dubey was killed at a place which was an hour away from Kanpur. The narrative according to the UP, Special Task Force (STF) that was escorting Dubey is that the car in which he was travelling flipped after taking a sudden turn to avoid a herd of cattle and turned turtle. The policemen and Dubey were injured but the latter managed to get out of the vehicle, snatched a gun from an injured policeman and tried to escape. The police team caught up with him and tried to get him to surrender, but he refused and started firing. The police had to fire back in self-defence. The police account however appears to be full of holes.
Dubey limps because he had a rod fitted on one foot after an injury. The question of him running for his life does not arise. As observed by Dr NC Asthana retired IPS officer who countered that the police story of Dubey running out of an overturned vehicle, grabbing a gun and trying to escape while firing at the police with his mask and also dying with the mask still on, was implausible. Different media teams that visited the venue of the alleged encounter killing also found the police story to be inaccurate. And this has a background. Dubey’s associates were also killed after they allegedly tried to escape from custody.
Apparently, Vikas Dubey had wanted to surrender hence he announced his name to the temple guards before he entered the Mahakal temple in Ujjain. Dubey had traversed several states unhindered after the massacre of policemen at Kanpur but had probably reached the end of the road after the Yogi Adityanath government razed his house to the ground. He has about 60 criminal cases against him which included murder. He is known to keep company with all shades of politicians, bureaucrats and the police across several states including UP, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana. If due legal procedures has been followed Dubey should have been arrested by following all the norms of safety and sealing all escape routes. He should have been brought to trial and made an example of how the law finally caught up with a dreaded criminal. Most importantly he would have been compelled to name all his accomplices among the politicians, bureaucrats and police. The alleged encounter killing puts paid to all that. This exposes the complete breakdown of law and order in states like UP, Bihar etc., where every government has its secrets to hide and its own set of criminals that it patronises.