The UP police have registered fresh FIRs against 18 people in total, including the wife, father, brother and associates of the slain gangster Vikas Dubey in the Bikru village encounter case. As per reports, the FIR lodged in Chaubeypur station on Thursday names Vikas Dubey’s wife Richa Dubey, his father Ramkumar Dubey, brother Deep Prakash, his wife Anjali and many others.
July 2020 Kanpur encounter in which 8 police personnel lost their lives: FIR registered against nine people, including slain gangster Vikas Dubey's brother & wife, for obtaining arms license by using fake documents. FIR also registered for obtaining SIM cards on someone else's ID
— ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) November 20, 2020
The FIR lodged against the above people also includes names of other associates like Vishnupal, Amit, Dinesh Kumar, Ravinder Kumar, Ashutosh Tripathy and others. These people are accused of filing forged affidavits in their names to obtain arms licenses. They have been booked under charges of fraud, cheating, forgery and other offences.
In a case of obtaining SIM cards under fake documents, Vikas’ family members, along with his wife Richa and Amar Dubey’s minor wife Rekha have been booked too. A total of 18 persons have been booked for getting sim cards with fake papers.
Arms licenses were issued to Vikas Dubey’s family despite several criminal cases
While investigating the Bikru village encounter, where three raiding police teams were ambushed and killed in a brutal attack led by Vikas Dubey’s men, the SIT had found that 6 people in Vikas’ family had arms licenses issued in their names. Richa Dubey, Vikas’ father, brother, his wife Anjali and their servant Dayashankar all had arms licenses issued from Lucknow and Kanpur. The fact that a noted gangster’s family managed to get so many arms licenses issued had raised serious questions on the conduct and operations of local police and law enforcement officials.
As per a report in Live Hindustan, in 2004, the administration had cancelled the arms license issued in the name of Vikas Dubey and an order in this regard was sent to the local police station. However, the file in the collector’s office was somehow suppressed and despite the order, Vikas’ weapon was never seized. SP had told that the local police station has no record of receiving the order for cancellation of Vikas’ license. The involvement of several government employees was suspected.
Role of police officials in aiding and abetting Vikas Dubey’s crimes
Immediately after the Bikru incident that saw eight police personnel losing their lives and several others injured in a fierce ambush carefully planned and laid by the gangster, the involvement of local and district level police officials to help the dreaded criminal has been under scanner. Soon after the encounter, the entire staff of Chaubeypur station was put under suspension and transferred. Action was taken against several other police officials too.
Recently, the Uttar Pradesh Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) Anant Dev Tiwari has been suspended by the Yogi government for his alleged involvement after an audiotape went viral. It is believed that Vikas Dubey’s clout had grown manifold when Anant Dev Tiwari was posted as SSP Kanpur. SSP Dinesh P, who was posted in Kanpur when the Bikru incident took place, has also been served a show-cause notice. Apart from Anant Dev Tiwari, former ASP Rural Pradyumn Singh, a former CO LIU of Kanpur, and some Lucknow-based officials have been under the scanner for their alleged involvement with the gangster too.
Soon after the Bikru encounter, a letter by martyred police officer Devendra Mishra to the then Kanpur SSP Anant Dev Tiwari had gone viral in the media. In the letter, the martyred officer had made serious allegations against the conduct of Chaubeypur station personnel and said that the inaction and deliberate negligence of SO Vinay Tiwari will lead to serious trouble soon.
It is notable here that SO Vinay Tiwari, SI KK Sharma and others from the Chaubeypur station had run away leaving their colleagues to be slaughtered by Vikas Dubey’s men when the firing had begun. Both Tiwari and Sharma were arrested later.
6 people involved in the murder of the police personnel on the night of July 3, including the gangster himself, were hunted down and killed by the UP Police within days. Dubey was killed when he was trying to flee from an upturned police vehicle that was bringing him to Kanpur from Madhya Pradesh. Several associates of Vikas Dubey have been arrested so far.
