Vikas Dubey flown to Kanpur after dubious arrest in Ujjain

Nearly 10 hours after his highly questionable arrest in Ujjain’s famous Mahakal temple on Thursday morning, the UP Special Task Force (STF) took Vikas Dubey to Kanpur in a chartered plane, the main accused in an incident where eight policemen gunned down.

The kingpin of Kanpur shootout was reportedly going to Mahakal temple when he was identified by security personnel on the tip off from a shopkeeper in the temple’s vicinity. The security guard reportedly had a scuffle with the gangster, according to eyewitnesses. Soon after, Ujjain police stepped in and took the man with a Rs five lakh bounty on his arrest under custody and grilled him for two hours.

While MP chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and home minister Narottam Mishra have credited state police for the dramatic arrest, the opposition is smelling foul play in the way the dangerous gangster ended his five-day run for life in the face of the UP police’s hot pursuit in the pilgrim town of Madhya Pradesh. What has deepened suspicious over the entire arrest drama was the fact that Vikas Dubey himself cried out loud his identity in public while the police was nabbing him.

The police have also arrested two lawyers from Lucknow who had reached here by a car. A liquor contractor and his manager have also been detained on suspicion of helping Vikas Dubey.

Home minister Narottam Mishra said the police were alerted by the intelligence agencies. A video clip showed Dubey being held by the scruff of his collar by the police, shouting, "Haan main Vikas Dubey hoon Kanpur wala (Yes I am the Vikas Dubey from Kanpur)".
Dubey apparently did not use any disguise to evade police and neither did he have any arms as weapons are prohibited inside the temple complex.

Ujjain collector Ashish Singh too claimed Vikas Dubey was apprehended by police.

However, the Congress leaders including former chief minister Digvijay Singh have alleged that the arrest was stage-managed to save Vikas Dubey from being encountered by the UP police. They have demanded a CBI probe into entire circumstances leading to ‘such an easy arrest’ of the dreaded gangster in MP. The Congress has alluded to involvement of home minister Narottam Mishra in the ‘surrender drama” by pointing out the fact that the powerful Brahmin leader of Madhya Pradesh was BJP in charge of Kanpur region in the 2017 assembly election in Uttar Pradesh.