Prior to Vikas Dubey’s killing in an alleged exchange of fire, the Uttar Pradesh police had previously shot dead five other accused linked to the ambush of July 2-3, in which eight policemen were killed .
Prem Kumar Pandey and Atul Kumar were killed on the same day a few hours after the ambush, in alleged exchange of fire. A pistol and rifle looted from the police team that had gone to raid Dubey’s house in Bikru were recovered from them, said police.
Pandey, who supervised work on the earthmover, which was used to block the path of the police team in Bikru on July 2, was a distant maternal uncle of Dubey. His son Sashikant, who works in a detergent factory, is also an accused with a bounty of ₹50,000. He is still absconding .
Amar Dubey, an aide of Vikas Dubey , who was often seen carrying a gun with the history-sheeter, was shot dead in a village in Hamirpur’s Maudaha on Wednesday. According to police, Amar was spotted in a village after a tip-off by an informant. He threw his bag on the ground and started firing at police with the intent to kill.
A sub-inspector was shot in his bullet-proof vest. The STF then asked him to surrender but he abused them and started firing again, said U.P. police. Then, the police entered into his firing range in a bid to arrest him and a constable was injured after allegedly being shot by Amar. In covering fire, he was shot. He died at a community health centre. An illegal semi-automatic .32 bore pistol was recovered from him, said police.
Prabhat, another aide of Vikas Dubey, was arrested in Faridabad on Wednesday. On Thursday, he was being brought to Kanpur under transit remand when one of the U.P. police vehicles had a flat tyre near Panki, said police. Prabhat snatched a pistol from a sub-inspector and tried to flee, while firing indiscriminately at the police team, who shot him in self-defence. He was killed.
Also read: Latest updates from the Vikas Dubey incident
Bauwa Pandey was shot dead in Etawah the same day. At around 3 a.m. on Thursday, some persons in an SUV were seen escaping after looting a car on a highway near Bakewar, Etawah. They were intercepted at Kachaura road at 4:30 a.m. and, during the chase, the looted car collided with a tree, following which the criminals started firing on the police, said police. When Bauwa Pandey was intercepted, he fired at the police team and, in return fire, he got seriously injured and was declared dead in the hospital, added police. A pistol and a DBBL gun were recovered from him. His three accomplices managed to flee in the SUV, said police.
Shyamu Bajpai was also shot by police in his leg in a separate incident but he survived. Bajpai and the two others were arrested on July 7 during a vehicle check, said police. On the morning of July 8, Shyamu was taken to a forest area 4 km near Shivli Road to recover the weapon used in the earlier encounter of July 2. Shyamu dug out a pistol hidden in a pit on the side of the road and fired at the police team with the intent to kill, following which the police shot at him in self-defence, police said. He was arrested.
Bajpai’s family, however, said he had already been picked up by police on July 3 from his house, where he was sleeping, a few hours after the ambush. Bajpai himself told media after being treated at a hospital that he had been in a police station and knew nothing about the killing of the cops. A 315 bore country-made pistol and two live cartridges were recovered from Shyamu, an alleged accomplice of Vikas Dubey, according to police. Shyamu works as a labourer in a detergent factory, his family said.
Dayashankar Agnihotri, Vikas Dubey’s cook, was also arrested by police after an alleged exchange of fire in which he was shot in his leg. After his arrest, Agnihotri told media that on the night of the ambush Dubey had received a tip-off about the police raid from a policeman in Chaubeypur station and that he had then summoned around 20-30 armed men to his house.
