Clean chit to Uttar Pradesh police in Vikas Dubey encounter case, panel says no evidence of wrongdoing

A three-member inquiry commission, led by retired Supreme Court justice BS Chauhan, gave a clean chit to the Uttar Pradesh Police in the case of gangster Vikas Dubey’s encounter, reports claimed. A senior home department official told Hindustan Times that the no evidence proved that the July 2019 encounter was a revengeful act on the part of Uttar Pradesh police for killing of eight policemen by gangster Vikas Dubey and his aides. The commission studied the facts of the case for eight months, following which the report was submitted to Uttar Pradesh’s home department and the Supreme Court on Monday. No eyewitness accounts were found in the case which could have negated the UP Police’s version of events that led to the encounter of Vikas Dubey and his aides, India Today quotes sources as saying. Speaking to PTI, a senior police official said, “No witnesses came forward to challenge the police claims even after advertisements in newspapers and media. Also, no one from the media came forward to get their versions recorded.” There were, however, witnesses supporting the police version, he added. On 3 July last year, eight policemen were killed in an ambush in Bikru village in Chaubeypur area of Kanpur when they were going to arrest Vikas Dubey. Police later killed Prem Prakash Pandey (55) and Atul Dubey (35) in an encounter in Kanpur on 3 July. On 8 July, Amar Dubey (30), who carried a reward of Rs 50,000 on him, was killed in an encounter in Maudaha village in Hamirpur district. On 9 July, Praveen Dubey, alias Bauwa (48), and Prabhat, alias Kartikeya (28), were killed in separate encounters in Etawah and Kanpur districts. Vikas Dubey was later arrested in Madhya Pradesh’s Ujjain and was being brought back to Uttar Pradesh by the police when the car they were travelling in overturned on the highway. An encounter broke out as Vikas Dubey tried to escape and police gunned him down. Six PILs were filed in the Supreme Court after this to seek a court-monitored probe into the encounter killings. The apex court had then on 22 July, 2020 approved the Uttar Pradesh government’s decision to institute the inquiry commission. The other two members of the commission are former Allahabad High Court judge Sashi Kant Agrawal and former UP Director General of Police KL Gupta. With inputs from PTI