UP encounter: Deserter SHO seen as ‘mole’

KANPUR: Gangster Vikas Dubey managed to remain elusive on Saturday, but police exacted their revenge for the brutal killings of eight of their colleagues by bulldozing the don’s fortified house in Chaubeypur’s Bikru village with the same earthmover that was used to trap and ambush the cops.
Meanwhile, Chaubeypur SHO Vinay Tiwari was suspended for fleeing the site when the encounter was on and bodies of his colleagues were falling in the midnight massacre. Tiwari is also under scanner for being the ‘mole’ in the police machinery “who tipped off” Dubey about the impending raid. He was detained and interrogated for several hours by the Special Task Force.
The air over Bikru village was laden with dust and flying concrete particles as the bulldozer pulled down boundary walls and razed the structure built on two bighas of land grabbed by the don. During the two-hour exercise, civic officials busted a secret underground bunker hemmed in a 12-foot-high boundary ringed with barbed wire. These and four palatial rooms furbished with luxuries, including a modular kitchen and designer washroom, were turned to rubble. Two white SUVs and two tractors of the gangster were also destroyed.
Investigating officials accompanying the demolition team also found 16 CCTV cameras installed at different angles with a master control room to track suspicious movement around the house. A battery of experts manned the control room, said police. But, what baffled cops was the missing digital video recorder, which could hold the key to the probe. “We are examining CCTV footage at junctions en route his house to collect evidence. Also, we are searching neighbouring houses to track the DVR,” said a police officer. Police sources said, a friend of Vikas from Chaubeypur, Manu, had lent the bulldozer which was later used in the ambush. Manu too has been named in the FIR and is on the run.
“Officials evacuated Dubey’s father, his maid, her husband and their two children before letting the bulldozer in. A surveillance team is scanning CDR of more than 800 mobile phones to trace Dubey’s whereabouts.
(With inputs from Pathikrit Chakraborty)