The dramatic ‘arrest’ of Kanpur carnage accused Vikas Dubey from Mahakal temple of Ujjain on Thursday raised several questions and only buttressed the strong nexus between politico-criminal nexus and how cops serve their common ‘interests’.
Elusive since the carnage of eight Kanpur police officers and personnel at Bikru village in Chaubeypur area of Kanpur on Friday early morning, Dubey surfaced in Faridabad on Tuesday. But he managed to flee just when the hotel was raided. Subsequently, security was beefed up in Delhi and Noida Film City after speculations over his possible surrender at a TV studio gained ground.
Dubey, however, had his own plans of escape. He managed to cross UP and Rajasthan to travel about 800 kilometres without any questioning to surface at Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh and later managed his own ‘arrest’.
Sources pointed towards a series of coincidences that raise doubts over the veracity of the ‘arrest’. On Wednesday, after Dubey escaped from a Faridabad hotel where his three aides were arrested, SP of Ujjain, Manoj Kumar Singh , effected some transfers in which Mahakal temple police station in-charge Prakash Vashkaly was shifted and replaced by Arvind Singh Tomar.
Sources also claimed that DM of Ujjain, Ashish Singh, along with the SP also reached Mahakal temple on Wednesday night.
What transpired in the secret meeting is unknown, but hours later on Thursday morning, Dubey visited the temple for a ‘darshan’ and declared his identity and nativity. In the next 120 minutes he was detained by temple security and later handed over to the police.
All the coincidence had an eerie commonalty and hence certain questions need to be answered to clear the cloud of doubts around them.
Was it not possible that Dubey feared being killed in an encounter in the same manner his aides were snuffed out by the cops and hence he stage-managed a surrender in the temple?
Similarly, despite the STF and Kanpur police being on his tail till Wednesday and police on the alert in UP, Delhi, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, how did Dubey reach Ujjain from Faridabad traversing 800 kilometres and who helped him in his transit without being questioned?
Another questions that crosses the mind is whether he was really identified by the temple security after which he shouted ‘Main Vikas Dubey hun’ or did he identify himself with the purpose of being taken into police custody in a place where he had no crimes?
Likewise, photos of Dubey inside the temple premises surfaced shortly after his detention. Who clicked these photos? Also, whether some media outfits were tipped-off about Dubey’s ‘surrender’ to prominently project that he was indeed taken into custody by MP Police ‘alive’ and result in his handover to UP Police ?