Kanpur encounter: Reminiscent of gunning down of four accused in Hyderabad vet’s rape & murder case

The killing of gangster Vikas Dubey and some of his henchmen in a series of alleged encounters in Uttar Pradesh is reminiscent of a similar incident here in which four people, accused of rape and murder of a veterinary doctor, had met a similar fate in December 2019.

In the Cyberabad incident, all the four accused were killed at one go in an exchange of fire.

Police in both the cases claimed that the suspects "snatched" their weapons and opened fire at them forcing them to retaliatory action "in self-defence."

Dubey was shot dead Friday by police, who claim he was trying to flee after the car carrying him from Ujjain overturned on the outskirts of Kanpur.

He was the sixth man to die in a police encounter after the ambush he allegedly masterminded in Kanpur's Bikru village past midnight on July 2, killing eight policemen who had come to arrest him.

Earlier, five members of Dubey gang were killed in separate encounters.

Surprisingly in both the Kanpur and Cyberabad encounters, the accused were not handcuffed while they were being taken in vehicles before the alleged retaliatory firing took place resulting in their deaths.

The snatched weapons were in "unlocked" position and the slain accused were not handcuffed when the firing took place, the Cyberabad Police Commissioner VC Sajjanar had earlier said when asked whether they were handcuffed.

According to Cyberabad police on the night of November 27, 2019, the four accused kidnapped the woman veterinarian and killed her after sexually assaulting her, and then shifted the body in a lorry to Chattanpalli near here where it was burnt under a culvert.

They were arrested on November 29.

They were killed in police firing on December 6, 2019 at Chattanpalli when they were taken to the scene of crime near the culvert, under which the charred remains of the 25-year-old veterinarian were found on November 28, to recover her phone, wrist-watch and others pertaining to the case.

The Cyberabadpolice had claimed that its personnel resorted to "retaliatory" firing after two of the accused opened fire after snatching their weapons besides attacking them with stones and sticks, resulting in injuries to two policemen.

The Telangana governmenthad set up a Special Investigation Team to probe the killings.

In December last year, the Supreme Court appointed a three-member inquiry commission headed by former apex court judge V S Sirpurkar to probe the case.