BJP was left red-faced after one of its legislators came out in support of the family of gangster Vikas Dubey, who, with his goons, had killed eight cops before being gunned down in an 'encounter' in July last year, and accused the police of 'harassing' Dubey's family.
Saffron party MLC Umesh Dwivedi, who is also the national president of an outfit espousing the 'Brahmin' community, in a letter to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, alleged that the police had been 'threatening' the family members of the slain gangster to implicate them in false cases and 'extorting' money from them.
''The family members are being harassed by the cops....false cases are being slapped on them,'' Dwivedi said in his letter and demanded that the cases be withdrawn forthwith.
A letter by the wife of the slain gangster's brother was also sent to the Chief Minister by Dwivedi in which she said that her family had nothing to do with the killing of the police personnel at Bikru village in Kanpur district by Vikas Dubey and his goons last year yet her husband was sent to jail after being implicated in false cases.
Vikas Dubey was gunned down in a controversial encounter near Kanpur town while he was being brought to Lucknow from Ujjain, where he was arrested. The police had claimed that Vikas snatched the pistol of a cop and tried to escape after the vehicle carrying him overturned. He fired, when asked to surrender, and was killed when the cops fired in 'self-defence'.
The encounter had acquired casteist overtones after leaders of several 'Brahmin' outfits accused the state government of 'targetting' the community.
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