Vikas Dubey encounter: Inquiry commission gives clean chit to UP police

Lucknow: A three-member judicial probe team led by former Supreme Court Justice B S Chauhan has given clean chit to Uttar Pradesh police in the encounter of noted gangster Vikas Dubey.

The inquiry commission has found no evidence of wrongdoing by the UP police in the encounter of Dubey and his five associates.

It was alleged that the encounter was to exact revenge for the killing of eight policemen by the outlaw and his men at Bikru village in Kanpur on July 3 last year.

Just within a week of the policemen, including a DSP, being killed by the gangster and his men by sophisticated firearms, there was a spate of encounters in which Dubey and his five associates were killed by UP police teams.

As many as six PILs were filed in the SC, which on July 22 last year had approved the UP government’s the decision to institute an inquiry commission headed by former SC judge Chauhan and comprising former Allahabad HC judge Sashi Kant Agrawal and former DGP K L Gupta.

The commission submitted its report to the UP government on Monday after eight months of intense yet futile search for independent witnesses who could give a version that was different from the police narrative about the encounter killings.

The report is in the process of being filed in the SC. While the armed assault on the police raid party happened in the dead of the night on July 3, the encounter killings of Dubey and his associates happened in broad daylight.

“There was no independent witness who came forward to depose and give evidence that was at variance with the police version of the encounters,” the Commission report said.

“It is a case of no evidence against the police,” the source said.

The commission gave repeated advertisements in newspapers requesting media personnel who reported on the encounters and termed it as fake to come forward to give evidence, but no one appeared before the panel. (UNI)