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    Gangster on the run, UP's main parties resort to mud-slinging

    Synopsis

    The BJP government, under fire on the state of law and order, finds the shoe on the other foot now after coming to power by slamming the Samajwadi Party on the issue. However, the party accused SP and BSP for not doing anything to check Dubey’s activities when they were in power.

    Kanpur ambush: Vikas Dubey spotted in Faridabad; gangster's 4 aides arrested, 1 killed
    New Delhi: The opposition in UP is questioning the BJP government even as every political party in the state is keen to dissociate itself from gangster Vikas Dubey, who has managed to evade arrest even five days after being accused of gunning down eight policemen in Kanpur.

    The BJP government, under fire on the state of law and order, finds the shoe on the other foot now after coming to power by slamming the Samajwadi Party on the issue. However, the party accused SP and BSP for not doing anything to check Dubey’s activities when they were in power.

    “Dubey has relations with SP and BSP and he prospered during their rule in UP from 2002 to 2017. Congress men have been his supporters too,” said BJP’s Chandra Mohan. “He murdered our minister in 2001 and was arrested. In 2017, after the Adityanath government came to power, he was arrested again and jailed for 18 months before he got bail in 2019.”

    BJP’s Manoj Shukla told ET that no appeal was filed in HC during the term of the government headed by Mulayam Singh Yadav of SP when Dubey was acquitted in 2006 by the trial court in the 2001 murder of his brother, Santosh. An order passed by special judge (Gangster Act) of Kanpur on July 5, 2018, denying Dubey bail in a case, mentions that Dubey had told the court that “his wife was a zila panchayat member from SP”, as per court records accessed by ET.

    After arresting Dubey in 2017, the BJP government had booked him under the Gangsters Act and Anti-Social Activities (Prevention) Act and chargesheeted him in 2019. He challenged this in HC and secured an order of no coercive action against him.

    SP, however, said Dubey was never its man and that he never contested even a panchayat election on an SP ticket. The party pointed to a video “confession” by him in 2017 naming two BJP MLAs, Bhagwati Sagar and AS Sangha, as his backers. “Then SSP of Kanpur, Anant Deo, did not act against Dubey even after the slain DSP’s letter. Deo did not put Dubey in the list of ‘Top 10 criminals’. Now, he has been handed the search operation as DIG, STF, and Dubey easily escaped. CBI should handle this case as senior officers of government are involved,” said SP’s Udaiveer Singh.

    BJP MLA Sagar said Dubey had backed the BSP candidate against him in the 2017 election and that the history-sheet of Dubey was destroyed by the police during the Mayawati regime. A BSP functionary, in turn, said Mayawati’s record against criminals was well-known.

    Unlike the SP, though, Mayawati has been subdued. In two tweets on July 3 after the killings, her only comments on the issue so far, she simply advised the UP government to be alert and to run a campaign against criminals.

    The opposition has said Dubey should be caught alive rather than killed in an encounter so that his political connections are revealed in custody. However, BJP spokesman Chandra Mohan said, “I wonder why the opposition is so worried about a criminal’s life now. They want to save him.”

    Meanwhile, in a late evening order on Tuesday, Anant Dev was removed as STF DIG.


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