An Uttar Pradesh Police personnel who was part of the team which came under fire during the raid at the notorious criminal Vikas Dubey's property in Kanpur's Bikaru village, has narrated the horror that unfolded in the early hours of Friday.
Kaushalendra Pratap, the Station House Officer of Bithoor police station here narrated in detail how the team walked into the ambush laid by the dreaded history-sheeter, which resulted in the deaths of eight policemen.
"Our team left at around 12:30 am that night (the intervening night of July 2 and 3) to conduct raid at Vikas Dubey's residence. We parked our cars near the site of raid and started walking towards his house," Pratap recounted.
"A JCB was already there. As we went around the JCB one by one and walked closer to the house our team was splattered with bullets. We could not see the targets, who were at a spot higher that us and they could see us clearly," he added.
The SHO said the police team had never anticipated that they would come face to face with an "encounter-like" situation.
It is alleged that Vikas Dubey had received a phone call alerting him about the police arriving to arrest him, following which Dubey and his accomplices hatched the plan to trap the raiding party and fired bullets on the police personnel.
Vikas Dubey is the main accused in the Kanpur encounter case, in which a group of assailants allegedly opened fire on a police team that was trying to arrest him in the early hours of Friday. Eight policemen were killed in the incident. Daya Shankar Agnihotri, an accomplice of Dubey who was arrested on Sunday had claimed that Dubey had received an alert.
Commenting upon Agnihotri's claims, Inspector General of Police Kanpur Mohit Agarwal said, "Station House Officer (SHO) of Chaubeypur Police Station in Kanpur district has been suspended for fleeing from the spot during a raid to arrest Dubey. We are investigating the role of police station from every possible angle."
"All the workers of the local police station are under our scope of investigation on how Vikas Dubey got information about police movement. Whoever is found guilty will be charged with murder," he added.
The Uttar Pradesh Police has contacted the police of both Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. Even after 65 hours, UP Police and ATS have not yet discovered anything about the whereabouts of Dubey, sources informed.
The district administration had on Saturday demolished the house and visuals showed cars and other vehicles in the premises of the building complex being crushed by machines.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath earlier announced Rs 1 crore each ex-gratia for the families of the policemen who were killed in the Bikaru village encounter.
( With inputs from ANI )