Under attack from the opposition parties and the human rights activists, the Uttar Pradesh government on Sunday formed a commission to probe the killing of eight cops at Bikaru village in Kanpur by gangster Vikas Dubey and his associates and also the gunning down of Vikas and his five goons in 'encounters' with the police.
An official spokesman here said that the one-man commission would be headed by Justice (retd) Shashi Kant Agarwal. ''The commission will submit its report in two months,'' he added.
The spokesman said that the ambush in which eight UP policemen had been killed and the subsequent 'encounters' in which Vikas and his five associates were gunned down were subjects of ''public importance'' and hence the commission was set up.
He also made it clear that the commission, which would be based at Kanpur, would also investigate the alleged nexus between the gangster and the cops and politicians.
''The commission will also suggest ways to prevent recurrence of such incidents in future,'' he added.
Eight UP cops, including a circle officer, had been killed, when a police team raided Vikas' residence at Bikaru village on July three. Five associates of Vikas were subsequently killed in 'encounters' with the police at different places in the state.
Vikas, who was 'arrested' from the famous 'Mahakal' Temple in Madhya Pradesh's Ujjain town on Thursday, was gunned down a day later in an 'encounter' with the cops near Kanpur.
The 'encounter' triggered a huge controversy and the opposition parties as well as the rights activists demanded a thorough probe into the same claiming that it was 'fake'.
The Special Task Force (STF) of the UP police, which gunned down Vikas, claimed that the gangster snatched the pistol of a cop and tried to escape and was killed in the ensuing gun battle.