He was a great one for Bollywood. His death brought about talk about what the next web series plot would be like. There has been wide speculation about Manoj Bajpayee taking the lead in doing the role to perfection. But little does anybody know that Vikas was a great one for the celluloid and he had a strong fascination for Sunny Deol as Arjun Pandit and Khalnayak’s Sanjay Dutt. If he loved people calling him Pandit, then his chant of “Main hoon Vikas Dubey, Kanpurwala” had strains of Sanju Baba.
In 1990 it all started after a young Vikas Dubey beatup some of another caste for insulting his father. As politicians saw immense potential in the aggression of the man, he saw political players intervening with no case registered. Two years later he was accused of murder, arrested again he was soon released on bail. This sequence kept repeating again and again. Dubey continued surfing past legal tangles with help from political connections, money and flexing muscle. He is also heard in a video on social media claiming former Uttar Pradesh Assembly Speaker Hari Krishna Srivastava was his political guru. Srivastava was Speaker in 1990-91 during Mulayam Singh Yadav. There are other videos that show Dubey claiming two BJP MLAs—Abhijeet Sanga and Bhagwati Sagar—helped him get bail in the 2017 case. Both have vehemently refuted the claim.
As his clout increased, Dubey, a Brahmin by birth, built a dedicated army of henchmen. In his village he was a Dabang neta also referred to as Panditji. For some a hero, for others the “Brahmin Shiromani”.
In 1999, Dubey killed one Jhunna Baba in the village grabbing his land and property. This happened at the backdrop of a 2000 crime where he was accused in the murder of teacher and retired principal of a local Tara Chand Inter College leading him to serve jail time.
In 2000, Dubey himself won the Shivrajpur seat in a Zila Panchayat poll he fought from prison, where he was lodged after a murder charge, according to officials. As early as 2001, Dubey allegedly chased a BJP leader of a minister of state rank in UP, Santosh Shukla, inside Shivli police station of Kanpur Dehat and shot him in cold blood in daytime. Four years after that he got acquitted.
He was accused of plotting the murder of one Ram Babu Yadav from the prison. His name came up in the murder of Dinesh Dubey, a businessman, in 2004. He allegedly committed another murder in 2013.
He was accused of ordering the murder of his cousin Anurag in 2018, while he was himself in jail. Dubey and his brother Deepu Dubey deal in real estate. Another younger brother Avinash was killed some time back.
When the current government came to power in 2017, Yogi Adityanath as chief minister declared a stern policy of zero tolerance towards organised crime and the mafia. The same year Yogi arrested Dubey under Gangsters and Anti-Social Activities (Prevention) Act from his house in Indralok Colony in Krishnanagar. Spending 18 months in jail he got bail in 2019.
Dubey has had a track record of being pradhan of Bikru village for 10 years, post which he became member of the zilla panchayat. Later his brother became the pradhan of Bikru village.
With 62 criminal cases against Dubey in UP, including murder and eight cases of attempt to murder cops invoked tough laws. Dubey led a massive gang of criminals called the D-124 gang which was registered in his name. The gang led by Vikas was registered on 30 June 2018 on the orders of the then SSP Akhilesh Kumar. Vikas and 11 other members are part of the gang. The annual turnover of his syndicate was 10 cr which came from land grabbing and money lending on interest.
Exploiting caste equations, Vikas turned a mercenary, shifting political loyalties. He had under his beck and call more than dozen Brahmin-dominated villages in Chaubepur area and could swing nearly one lakh votes say reports. It was an impending rivalry between Vikas Dubey and brother in law Rahul Tiwari that led to the July 2 ambush primarily over 2 acres of land.
Bypassing judicial process, he has been convicted only in one murder case—in 2000. The alleged gangster lived with father, Ram Kumar Dubey, who is now being questioned by police. For the outsider the gangster’s home till last day was an impenetratable castle” with CCTV cameras.
Caught in MP’s Ujjain Mahakal temple, he was on the run for almost a week since the ambush and killing of eight police personnel in Kanpur. As police searched for him in Haryana, Delhi, and kept a close watch on Indo-Nepal border, crossing three states over five days, Dubey was nabbed in the safe grounds of the temple complex at Ujjain.
As per a Hidustan Times report, Vikas was reportedly spotted changing varied modes of transports like motorcycles, an SUV, sand-laden trucks and taxis to escape his house in Kanpur’s Bikru village from where he moved to Faridabad. He was also in a hotel for two days. A vehicle was abandoned in Auraiya. The killers reportedly also changed blood stained clothes and boarded red sand-laden trucks. He was also spotted in CCTV footage outside the hotel at Badkhal Chowk.
The prize money of five lakhs is testimony to how big Vikas Dubey had become in the crime world. After the Bikru episode, 60 teams of the UP police were searching for him.
The team of the UP Police Special Task Force (STF) reached Ujjain, and got custody of Dubey. The STF had taken him to Kanpur by road. As per information shared, while on the way Dubey was shot dead after he allegedly tried to escape police custody in Kanpur. All this happened at around 7.00 am when the vehicle in which Dubey was being shifted to Kanpur overturned meeting an accident in Sachendi area of Kanpur confirmed ASP Kanpur, Dr Anil Kumar to the media.
The police claim that in an advantageous position Dubey trying running away snatching a service pistol, belonging to one of the officers. Another team escorting them reached the spot and opened fire in an ongoing combing operation.
As per the police version, when the police closed in then Dubey opened fire. With two cops wounded, the police retaliated injuring the gangster. The three injured were taken to a hospital, where doctors declared Dubey dead.
Dubey succumbed to four bullet injuries, three of them in the chest as per an PTI report. He was later cremated in a private ceremony at Bhairoghat amid heavy security.
With both the media reportage and political class raising doubts now a SIT probe has been initiated. Dubey went missing for almost week after which he was arrested. Ujjain SP Manoj Kumar Singh cleared that Dubey had bought a Rs 250 ticket for VIP darshan at the temple. While leaving, he was caught when the security guards asked him his name, and an argument ensued. He was overpowered by guards on the temple premises. He disclosed his identity and was taken to the police station where cops took over.
In a widely circulated video, Dubey is heard shouting “Vikas Dubey hoon Kanpur wala when a policeman slaps him and tries to force him into a police vehicle. The entire manhunt for the man heated up after on the night of July 2-3, eight Uttar Pradesh cops, which included a Deputy Superintendent of Police and three Sub-Inspectors, were martyred in a raid to arrest Dubey in Bikru village, near Kanpur city. 20 policemen had gone to the village, in Chaubeypur police station area, to arrest the gangster, a history-sheeter who faced about 60 criminal cases including murder and attempt to murder.
Others killed were Prem Prakash Pandey and his associate Atul Dubey. A service pistol and a country-made pistol were recovered from their possession. Attackers had snatched an AK-47, an INSAS rifle and two pistols from cops.
Following his disappearance even his house in Bikru village was demolished. The police lodged an FIR against 21 people, mostly residents of Bikru village, and 50-60 unidentified people.
All 68 cops at Chaubeypur police station were shown the door as Uttar Pradesh Police ordered an inquiry after a letter showed a link between Dubey and a local police station head. It exposed Station Officer of the local Chaubeypur Police Station, Vinay Tiwari.
Subsequently, Tiwari and Sub-Inspector Krishna Kumar Sharma were arrested on charges of conspiracy. Kanpur police establishment found merit in the allegation.
While five of Dubey’s men have been killed. There are a team of 21 in total who are named in the FIR. Twelve people, including five women, have been arrested so far.
Turning into a political hot potato, Opposition leaders have alleged a bigger plot behind the killing of the dreaded gangster, a day after his arrest in MP’s Mahakal temple.
While the SP has said it smells a rat, the grand old Congress has demanded a judicial probe monitored by a sitting Supreme Court judge. It has demanded a CBI probe into the botched Kanpur raid.
Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati also demanded a SC-monitored probe into the incident.
His well groomed demeanour, led the Opposition to even allege that he might have staged a surrender with help from the ruling government.
Former Union minister and Loktantrik Janata Dal leader Sharad Yadav said claim of killing Dubey seems to be “fake”. He said the man could have disclosed many secrets.
Ruling out need for a CBI probe, MP Home Minister Narottam Mishra said “law has taken its own course.” BJP leader Uma Bharati congratulated the UP police for gunning down Dubey.
UP and neighbouring Bihar have seen a tradition of rising Baahubalis turned politicians like Shri Prakash Shukla, Mukhtar Ansari, Raja Bhaiya, Amanmani Tripathi, Atiq Ahmed and Harishankar Tiwari later taking to politics.
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