Vikas Dubey's 'encounter' raises questions, Opposition seeks probe

Gangster Vikas Dubey's killing in an 'encounter' on a cloudy Friday morning near Uttar Pradesh's Kanpur triggered a huge controversy with the opposition parties as well as rights activists claiming that it was 'fake' and demanding a thorough probe.

To make the matter worse for the UP police, even a senior IPS officer questioned their claim and suspected that the 'encounter' might have been conducted to 'save' some people.

The cops also found themselves pushed into a corner and failed to clear doubts raised in various quarters over the 'encounter'.

The police 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'.

Also Read: Vikas Dubey encounter draws parallels with Hyderabad encounter of four accused in rape and murder of a vet

Sources, however, said that there were no skid marks on the road, where the vehicle had overturned. Furthermore, Vikas was shifted to another vehicle a few kilometres before the encounter site.

Several media vehicles, which were following the Special Task Force (STF) convoy, were stopped by the police barely ten kilometres away from the site of the encounter. The media personnel, who were allowed to proceed after 15 minutes, found the STF vehicle overturned, when they reached the site and were told that Vikas had tried to escape and had been hit by bullets.

Kanpur IG Mohit Agarwal did not answer, when asked if Vikas was handcuffed. ''I salute the bravery of the cops, who killed Vikas Dubey,'' he said.

Interestingly, two close aides of the gangster-Prabhat Mishra and Baua Dubey-had also been gunned down in an encounter with the cops barely half a kilomtere away from the spot, where Vikas was killed, a day before. The cops had then too claimed that Prabhat snatched the pistol of a cop and tried to escape and was killed in the ensuing gun battle.

Senior IPS officer Amitabh Thakur suspected that Vikas had been killed to 'save' some people. ''The criminal was killed...what will now happen to his protectors,'' Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra asked in a tweet.

Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav also echoed similar sentiments. ''The car had not overturned....the killing was an attempt to save the government from overturning,'' he said.

This was not the first time that UP police faced criticism for allegedly conducting 'fake' encounter. Between March 2017 and December 2019, over 5200 'encounters' have taken place in UP in which over 100 'criminals' had been killed.

UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath had invited the ire of the rights activists over the former's 'thonk denge' (shoot) remarks for the criminals