India / 8 policemen died, UP govt had no other option: Raut on Dubey encounter

New Delhi: The Yogi Adityanath-led BJP government in Uttar Pradesh, under-fire over the encounter of history-sheeter Vikas Dubey in Kanpur on Friday, received support from unexpected quarters on Saturday, with its former Maharashtra ally Shiv Sena saying that ‘it is not right to question police and demoralise them’.

Speaking to news agency ANI, Sena Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut said, “An anti-social element who runs a gang of goons, when someone like him attacks men in uniform, killing eight, he can’t be forgiven. If he has been killed in encounter, then I think it is not right to question police and demoralise them”.

“If eight policemen are killed like that, then state government has no other option. If police did the encounter, then no one should raise a question-be it media, political parties or Human Rights Commission. Investigate but don’t politicise”, he added.

Notably, last Friday, Dubey and his henchmen had gunned down eight policemen, including a DSP, in Kanpur. The gangster, then escaped to Haryana’s Faridabad and finally to Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh, where he surrendered on Thursday under dramatic circumstances, identifying himself publically as ‘Vikas Dubey, Kanpurwala‘, in a bid to avoid being encountered by the police.

However, in equally dramatic circumstances, he was shot dead early Friday morning by the STF team which had brought him back to Kanpur, exactly a week after and in the same city where he and his associates had gunned down the eight police personnel.

As per the police, this happened after a vehicle of its convoy, in which Dubey was being brought back, overturned. The history-sheeter, the police said, then tried to escape by snatching the pistol of a constable, and was killed in the ensuing encounter.

The encounter however, was promptly termed as ‘fake’ by the opposition and critics, both of whom said that Dubey was killed to protect his ‘political masters’.