Kanpur: Wife of Vikas Dubey’s slain lieutenant declared juvenile

KANPUR: In prison for over 55 days, wife of a slain lieutenant of gangster Vikas Dubey, who was booked under stringent IPC sections, including murder and criminal conspiracy has been declared a juvenile by Juvenile Justice Board on Wednesday. Her parents had recently claimed in an affidavit before a special court in Kanpur Dehat that their daughter was a minor.
The girl was married to Dubey’s aide Amar, three days before the Bikru bloodbath and was widowed nine days later. Amar was shot in an encounter in Hamirpur, just days before Vikas Dubey’s dramatic surrender in Ujjain.
Principal magistrate, Juvenile Justice Board, Kanpur Dehat, Kamalkant Gupta observed that in case of a heinous offence alleged to have been committed by a minor, who has completed or is above age of 16 years, the Board shall conduct a preliminary assessment of the accused’s mental and physical capacity to commit such an offence, ability to understand consequences of the crime and circumstances in which it was committed. The Board may take the assistance of psychologists or psycho-social workers to do the assessment, he said.
On August 12, girl’s father Shyam Lal Tiwari submitted an affidavit before the special anti-dacoity court at Mati headquarters in Kanpur Dehat, pleading that their daughter be tried as a juvenile. They had submitted a copy of the High School certificate and other Basic school documents, in support of their daughter’s age, which shows her to be a minor as on July 2 — the day of the Bikru ambush in which she was made a co- accused.
Her lawyer, Shivakant Dikshit, told media persons the girl’s age was 16 years, 10 months and 12 days on the day of the carnage. Her high school certificate and other documents were enclosed in the affidavit, which shows her birth date as August 21, 2003. “After hearing the petition, special judge, anti-dacoity, sent the file to Juvenile Justice Board to ascertain her age. The board after going through facts declared her juvenile,” he said.
The girl’s father had alleged that police implicated his minor daughter in the Bikru case. “She is not an adult and not mature enough to engineer an ambush with the gangster and his aides. We suspect police implicated her and even if my daughter committed a crime, police should treat her as juvenile,” he had said.
The girl was married against the wishes of her father on June 29. She was thrown behind bars on July 8, the day her husband, Amar Dubey, was shot by the Special Task Force. Amar was trying to flee to Madhya Pradesh, when he was intercepted by STF and killed. Two policemen also suffered gunshot wounds in the encounter.