The Allahabad High Court has on Tuesday, September 21, refused to grant bail to two policemen namely suspended Chaubeypur Station Officer Vinay Kumar Tiwari and Beat Officer Krishna Kumar Sharma, Live Law has reported. The two police personnel are facing charges of conspiracy in connection with the Bikru ambush case in Kanpur in July 2020, in which eight policemen were killed by notorious gangster Vikas Dubey.
While denying bail, the single-judge bench of Justice Pradeep Kumar Srivastava remarked, “Who will police the police”, the famous statement made by Justice VR Krishna Iyer during a hearing 40-years-ago.
“About 40 years have passed, but, that question is still there with a bigger question mark”, the Court observed.
“Such policemen tarnish the image, name, and fame of police and it is necessary that suspicious police personnel should be taken to task and their conduct should be regularly monitored for which a mechanism should be evolved, and if it exists already, the same should be geared up at different levels”, the court added.
Two policemen accused of leaking information to Dubey’s aides
The two suspended policemen were accused of leaking information about police action to gangster Vikas Dubey prior to the encounter in Kanpur. Tiwari and beat in charge of Bikru KK Sharma, were not only suspended soon after the encounter but also arrested on charges of fleeing the encounter site and putting the lives of other policemen in danger.
They were booked under sections 147, 148, 149, 302, 307, 504, 506, 353, 332, 333, 396, 412, 120B, 34 IPC, section 7 of Criminal Law Amendment Act, and section ¾ of Explosive Substances Act.
Both the SIs had allegedly tipped off Vikas Dubey about the impending police raid.
The 2020 Bikru ambush conducted by the aides of notorious gangster Vikas Dubey
The police team comprising of 15-16 personnel had carried out the raid on July 3, 2020, based on a complaint from Rahul Tiwari, who had lodged a case against Vikas Dubey on charges of attempt to murder.
As the police team reached the spot, they were ambushed by Dubey’s men who were prepared with arms on the roof of a building and continuously shot at them. Shockingly, the criminals had already stationed a JCB machine on the road to block the police team.
Eight police personnel, including Deputy SP Devendra Mishra, were killed and six cops were injured in the police raid.
The Uttar Pradesh police, working at the behest of the Yogi Adityanath government had relentlessly pursued the Vikas Dubey case to dig out the names of the police personnel who had been hand-in-gloves with the slain gangster. In July 2020 the Uttar Pradesh government had ordered that a Special Investigation Team (SIT) will probe into the crimes committed by the dreaded gangster and his alleged links with police personnel.
Vikas Dubey killed in an encounter
Gangster Vikas Dubey, who was arrested from Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh on July 9, 2020, was killed in an encounter in Kanpur in the early morning of July 10 last year. According to reports, the encounter broke out between Vikas Dubey and the Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (STF) after the gangster tried to flee from the overturned vehicle that was bringing him from Madhya Pradesh.
