Six days of a broad manhunt later, fugitive gangster Vikas Dubey was arrested in Madhya Pradesh yesterday and handed over to the Uttar Pradesh police. Today morning he was killed. The UP police say Dubey fired at them after a road accident overturned their vehicle, and then they shot him in self-defense.
Even as commentators rip holes in the police story, the bigger giveaway is that this incident is part of a pattern. Three close aides of Dubey were killed in recent days in similar encounters in Etawah, Kanpur and Hamirpur. That these men were accused of shooting dead eight policemen in Kanpur’s Bikru village last week is obviously no justification. What is at stake is the rule of law, which UP police seem to believe they are above.
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In this particular case, another worry is that the police-criminal-political nexus that needed exposing in the Vikas Dubey case is now going to get a quiet burial. But that is the problem with men in khaki running rogue. From custodial torture to extra-judicial killings, when police itself is gripped by lynch mob mentality it is a terrible portent for the larger society. If the state has become incapable of upholding basic constitutional precepts, the Supreme Court must step in and set it right.
Read also: Vikas Dubey shot dead while trying to flee
