In a surprise move, DGP Harish Chandra Awasthi reportedly stopped IG (Civil Defence) Amitabh Thakur and his social activist wife Nutan Thakur from visiting Bhauti area of Kanpur, where Bikru village carnage mastermind Vikas Dubey was killed in an encounter with the STF last Friday.

The Thakurs were on way to Bhauti and also had plans to visit Dubey’s native village at Bikru, where the eight Kanpur police officers and personnel were trapped and fatally ambushed, when they were asked by the DGP to return to Lucknow.

Reacting to the development, Nutan Thakur said that her husband Amitabh, who is posted as IG (Civil Defence), was called by the DGP back to Lucknow, saying that he could not visit the spot. She said that they would now soon visit the two spots together.

Earlier, Amitabh Thakur hogged news space after tweeting last Thursday that Vikas Dubey might probably try to escape from police custody and end up being shot dead.

Thakur’s tweet proved prophetic as the gangster was shot dead near Kanpur for allegedly trying to escape while being escorted from Ujjain to Kanpur on Friday morning.

Besides Thakur, another senior IPS officer also raised doubts over the encounter. “No doubt it is a big embarrassment for UP Police that Dubey managed to reach Ujjain and manage his surrender. But it would be a bigger embarrassment if Dubey reaches Kanpur alive. The police should eliminate him once he enters the UP border,” the officer has said on Thursday night.

After Dubey was killed on the outskirts of Kanpur the next morning, the officer said, “Friday morning saved the police from that big embarrassment.”

Aiming to clear all doubts over the encounter, the UP government has set up a one-member judicial commission chaired by retired judge of High Court, Justice (Retd) Shashi Kant Agarwal. The commission would probe all issues related to the July 3 ambush of eight policemen in Bikru village and later the encounter of wanted Vikas Dubey.