5 Big Questions On Cops' Version Of Vikas Dubey's Death In Encounter

Gangster Vikas Dubey was killed while trying to escape after a road accident, the Uttar Pradesh police said on Friday, raising several questions about the early morning encounter. Videos and witness accounts have underlined the questions that, so far, have no answers from the police.

Vikas Dubey, wanted for the killing of eight Uttar Pradesh policemen last Friday, was being taken in a police convoy to Kanpur after his arrest yesterday in Madhya Pradesh when the incident took place. Just 30 km short of Kanpur, one of the three cars in the convoy overturned on the highway.

The UP police say that was the car in which Vikas Dubey was travelling.

The car in which Vikas Dubey was being taken overturned on the highway.

The criminal snatched a gun from an injured cop and tried to escape, the police said. He was surrounded and asked to surrender but he opened fire, forcing retaliatory shooting, claimed the police.

The incident begs these questions:

• Why was Vikas Dubey's car switched? Hours before the encounter, a video at a toll plaza at 4 AM showed him in a different car, not the one that overturned.
• Why was the media, which had been following the police convoy, stopped 2 km from the site where the accident and encounter took place?
• Eyewitnesses say they heard gunshots but don't mention any accident. They say they were asked by the police to leave.
• Why was a dangerous criminal charged in 60 cases including murder not handcuffed? The police say when the car overturned, Vikas Dubey managed to steal a gun, climb out and run.
• The car overturned at a point where there was no barrier and there was a side road into the fields, the one that Vikas Dubey took while running away, according to the police.

A petition filed last night at the Supreme Court, which had asked for protection of Vikas Dubey, has asked for a CBI investigation into recent encounter killings.