Lucknow: A three-member inquiry commission, set up by the Supreme Court, probing encounter of gangster Vikas Dubey and his five aides, gave a clean chit to the Uttar Pradesh Police.
The panel included retired Supreme Court Judge B.S. Chauhan, retired Allahabad High Court Judge S.K. Agarwal and former Director-General of Police, UP K.L. Gupta.
In its 130-page report, the inquiry panel cited lack of evidence as the main reason for giving clean chit to the Uttar Pradesh Police which gunned down gangster Vikas Dubey and his five associates.
Dubey and his men were involved in the brutal killing of eight police men, including a DySP, when the police party raided his home in Bikru village on July 3, 2020, in Kanpur. Dubey was arrested in Ujjain and was gunned down by the police when he tried to flee from the police custody on the way to Kanpur. The police had also shot dead five of his men in separate encounters.
The panel members had recorded statements of the policemen involved in the encounter, eye-witnesses, villagers and media persons.
As many as half a dozen PILs were filed in the Supreme Court against Dubey’s encounter. The apex court had set up a three-member inquiry panel to probe allegations of fake encounters by the UP Police to avenge the killings of eight policemen.
Even after publishing advertisements in leading newspapers, no one came forward to deny the police encounter theory. Media persons, who were accompanying the police party bringing Vikas Dubey from Ujjain, also did not provide any material evidence against the police which encountered Dubey when he tried to flee from police custody after snatching the pistol of a Sub-Inspector.
Despite repeated summons, none of the family members of Vikas Dubey came forward to record their statement before the inquiry commission. Most of those appeared before the panel supported the police theory of encounter.
The additional chief secretary home Awanish Awasthi said that the panel has submitted its report to the state government on Tuesday. He, however, refused to make any comment on its content. “The report will be submitted shortly to the Supreme Court for action,” he said.
