All in a day: Appearance, arrest, end of bloody saga

LUCKNOW: When Vikas Dubey made a surprise appearance at Ujjain’s Mahakaal temple on Thursday after six days of unbridled run covering five states, it was just the beginning of another action-packed day of political barbs, wild rumours and an encounter.
It all started around 7.45am on Thursday when the fugitive don reached Mahakaal temple. He then bought a VIP ticket and stood in the queue of devotees for aarti and shot a selfie video. Soon after aarti, a private security guard “identified” him and informed Mahakaal police station.


When cops rushed to the spot and nabbed him around 9am, he shouted, “I am Vikas Dubey, Kanpurwallah”, while being forced into a police vehicle.
A cop was seen whacking on his head while Dubey continued to shout that he had been arrested.

The gangster was then taken to the Police Training School in Ujjain and handed over to the UP Police team. All this while, debate raged on if it was an arrest or surrender.
Rumour mills also worked full throttle as reports started doing the rounds that Dubey would be taken to UP in a chartered plane.

The STF team which had finally arrived by road in three SUVs started for a return journey from MP at 8.45pm. Here also, the movement was filled with suspense soon after the team hit the highway. A fleet of cars and jeeps started following the convoy.
The ASP-rank officer of the STF and in-charge of the team also made an SOS call to some of the senior officers posted at the DGP headquarters about the development.

Local intelligence had already informed the police that there could be “some provocation” on the stretch. As a result, some of the vehicles were also changed in between the passages. Twice the vehicles were changed and the cops too.
When things seemed to be working fine then again around 4.46am, some media persons had to stop near a toll plaza in Jalaun as trucks were lined due to heavy rain.
“A man had slept on the main highway stopping the movement of vehicles,” said one of the mediapersons who was following the convoy from Ait toll plaza.

The passage was only cleared after senior officials intervened. Similar situation prevailed near Barajod toll plaza near Kanpur. All vehicles trailing the convoy were stopped here on the pretext of ‘checking’. The STF convoy moved towards Sachendi from there.
Later, police said that one of the SUVs overturned after which Dubey tried to flee the spot but was shot by cops at 6.45am.