New Delhi: Amar Dubey, an aide to historian Vikas Dubey, was killed in a meeting with the Uttar Pradesh Special Force in Hamirpur on Wednesday morning. Amar Dubey was involved in the Kanpur shooting in which eight police officers were killed last week.
The ambush brought the police under the scanner, as it was alleged that Vikas was warned. On Tuesday, about 68 members of the Chaubeypur police station staff were dispatched to the reserve police lines and senior officials said they suspected their integrity.
Tuesday night’s drastic move followed soon after the police announced the transfer of a DIG, who until recently was the Senior Superintendent of Police in Kanpur. He was transferred from the state Special Task Force (STF) to the Provincial Armed Police (PAC) unit in Moradabad.
Police also arrested three more people in connection with the murder of the eight police personnel, who were ambushed early Friday when they were in a raid to arrest gangster Vikas Dubey in his village of Bikru, near Kanpur.
Dubey’s relative Shama, neighboring Suresh Verma, and domestic help Rekha were arrested earlier that day.
Rekha’s husband, Dayashankar Agnihotri, a key member of the Dubey gang, is already behind bars, arrested Sunday after a match in which police shot him in the leg. Two other suspected gang members were killed in a meeting last Friday.
Police believe the gangster was alerted by someone from the Chaubeypur police station, giving him time to ambush. Station officer Vinay Tiwari and three other police officers are already suspended.
Police have named 21 people in the FIR registered after the attack. The FIR also mentioned 50-60 unidentified people. Kanpur police released the photos of 15 criminals who are said to be near Dubey. They are putting up posters with the images of these suspected criminals, most of them with a reward of Rs 25,000 for their arrest.
Vikas Dubey, with a reward of Rs 2.50 lakh on him, remained elusive.
Their posters have also been affixed to road toll plazas, including those in Unnao, Kanpur Nagar, Auraiya, Fatehpur, and areas near the India-Nepal border. Police issued alerts in Lakhimpur Kheri, Maharajganj, Siddharthnagar, Bahraich, and Gorakhpur to prevent Vikas Dubey from escaping across the border into Nepal.
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