Madhya Pradesh connect: 6 held for helping Vikas Dubey escape

Kanpur (Uttar Pradesh)/ Bhopal: The Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (STF) has arrested six persons on charges of providing shelter and financial aid to slain gangster Vikas Dubey and his aides.

They have also been charged with disposing of a semi-automatic weapon from his native Bikru village where Dubey and his men had killed eight policemen, including a DSP, on July 3 last year.

The arrests were made in Kanpur on Monday. Inspector General STF Amitabh Yash said that a resident of Bhind in Madhya Pradesh, who had purchased a semi-automatic 30 Springfield American rifle from the gang, has also been arrested.

The STF also recovered a huge cache of arms and ammunition, including a semi-automatic 30 Springfield American rifle, an automatic carbine, a revolver, a single barrel gun and two country-made pistols, huge number of cartridges including of AK -47, 7.62, 30.06, 12, .38 and 315 bores, besides charger clips of 30.06 cartridge and an Apple phone belonging to Vikas, seven android phones belonging to his aides Amar Dubey and Prabhat Mishra, two four-wheelers including an Omni car, besides a PAN and Aadhaar card and Rs 2.5 lakh in cash.

“The arrested persons include Vishnu Kashyap, Aman Shukla, Ram Ji, Abhinav Tiwari, Sanjay Parihar and Shubham Pal, all natives of Kanpur Dehat, and Manish Yadav of Bhind district of MP. They were arrested when they were planning to dispose of the remaining arms and ammunition of the slain criminals,” the IG said.

Vishnu Kashyap, a resident of Shivli in Kanpur Dehat and a childhood friend of slain criminal Prabhat Mishra, had played a major role in providing shelter and facilitating Vikas’s escape.

“He had borrowed a Swift DZire car from his friend Chotu and used it to transport Vikas, his nephew Amar and co-villager Prabhat to his brother-in-law Ramji’s house in Tulsi Nagar where they stayed in the basement. They had also carried with them several arms and ammunition,” the IG added.

On July 3, Ramji took Amar Dubey to an orchard of one Sanjay Parihar in Kariyajhala village from Rasoolabad on his motorcycle.

“There Amar Dubey asked Puttu Mishra to arrange for a safe hideout following which he had arranged their stay at the pump house. Amar was later joined by his uncle Vikas and Prabhat Mishra. However, on finding the place unsafe, Vikas again asked Puttu Mishra to arrange for a safer hideout. Subsequently, one Shivam Pal of Mangalpur had arranged a room for Vikas, where he stayed for two days,” the official said.