How Vikas Dubey was arrested

After a week, wanted criminal Vikas Dubey, the main kingpin behind the killing of eight policemen in Kanpur encounter, was caught in Madhya Pradesh's Ujjain at Mahakal Temple.

Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh's dreaded gangster Vikas Dubey, who has had a thing for Bollywood, on Thursday was arrested over a thousand kilometers away from what could be his swan song of criminal life in the Mahakaal temple premises of Madhya Pradesh's Ujjain as he announced in Sanjay Dutt's 'Khalnayak' style: "Mein hun Vikas Dubey, Kanpurwala".

Dubey has been on the run for almost a week, ever since the ambush and killing of eight police personnel in Kanpur. As police searched for him in Haryana, Delhi, and kept a close watch on Indo-Nepal border, the Kanpur boy who had launched himself into crime in the 1990s in the image of Sunny Deol's 'Arjun Pandit' and loved the sound of being addressed to as 'Pandit' in political and police circles, managed to dodge the bullet as he was nabbed in the safe grounds of the temple complex.

Temple sources said that Dubey reached the temple gate in the morning and purchased a Rs 250 ticket from a counter near the police post. When he went to a nearby shop to buy 'prasad' for the deity, the shop owner identified him and alerted police, they added.

When the policemen asked him his name, he loudly said 'Vikas Dubey', following which the cops and private security personnel deployed at the temple nabbed him, the sources said.

Eyewitnesses said Dubey was accompanied by two associates. However, police are yet to confirm this account.

In a photograph that has gone viral, shows Dubey sitting comfortably on a sofa inside the temple complex.

Uttar Pradesh Police officially confirmed the arrest of Vikas Dubey. Madhya Pradesh Home minister Narottam Mishra tried to take credit for the gangster's arrest. Speaking to the media minutes after Dubey was whisked away to an unidentified location for medical examination and questioning, Mishra said: "Hamari police kisi ko nahin chhodti. Hamare jaanbaaz police jawanon ne usey dhar dabocha (Our police never lets any criminal go scott free. They have nabbed him)."

READ: Security guard who spotted gangster Vikas Dubey at Ujjain's Mahakal Temple

Mishra said the details of his arrest and the related process would be made public by the police later. He said Dubey has been known to be "cruel and crafty" from childhood. The police had to be extra cautious.

After Dubey was arrested, the information was passed on to the Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan who alerted the UP CM Yogi Adityanath.

"Those who thought by seeking refuge in Mahakaal, they will be able to wash off their sins, they never really understood Mahakaal," Chouhan tweeted in Hindi.

According to sources, the wanted criminal has been taken to an unknown secret place by the police.

Mishra said the police were alerted by the intelligence agencies. Video clips released by various channels showed Vikas Dubey being held by the scruff of his collar by the police, shouting, "Haan main Vikas Dubey hoon Kanpur wala (Yes I am the Vikas Dubey from Kanpur)".

Everything points to Vikas having travelled all the way from Faridabad to the high security zone of Mahakaal to avoid a death in police encounter. In the secure premises of Mahakaal temple he could avoid extra judicial justice. Two of his alleged gang members were also said to have been arrested.

The Madhya Pradesh police have taken the gangster away to the Mahakaal police station and the UP police will now seek transit remand and bring him to Kanpur.

The police theory of the arrest, meanwhile, has several loopholes.

"This is a pre-planned surrender because it seems too simple to be true. Vikas had successfully eluded the police in three states for one week and it is rather unusual that he would enter a temple without a mask and get arrested. He knew that he would be shot dead if he gave himself up to UP police," said a retired DGP.

A senior police official admitted that the arrest seems extremely well planned.

"The gangster wanted to surrender in a 'safe state'. He did not go to court because of police presence and, therefore, chose the temple. Unless the police decide to make another mistake, Vikas Dubey will not be harmed physically now," he said.

Dubey had been eluding the police for the past one week and though four dozen teams of Special Task Force and state police were chasing him, they could not nab him.

Five associates of Vikas Dubey have been shot dead in UP after the killing of eight policemen last week.

Two of his associates, Prem Prakash Pandey and Atul Dubey were shot dead on Friday, hours after the massacre. Amar Dubey was shot dead on Wednesday in Hamirpur and Prabhat and Bauan Dubey were shot dead in Kanpur and Etawah respectively on Thursday morning.

All of them were reportedly involved in the shootout.

READ:'Lord Mahakal saved him': Vikas Dubey's mother on gangster's arrest

Dubey's arrest is a major setback to the UP Special Task Force that failed to nail the gangster. The STF, which had been claiming till late on Wednesday that Dubey was hiding in Delhi-NCR, was blissfully unaware that he had moved across to Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh. There is a distance of 773 kilometers from Faridabad where Dubey was reportedly seen last on Tuesday and Ujjain where he finally was 'arrested'.

The STF which has killed five accomplices of Vikas Dubey in the past seven days has put out a strikingly similar theory for all the encounters - "we tried to stop them, they opened fire and were killed in retaliatory firing".

Atleast eight policemen, including a deputy superintendent of police, were killed and seven others injured in a gunbattle with criminals on the intervening night of July 2 and 3 following which a massive search operation was launched to nab him. Dubey, the wanted history-sheeter, who has 60 criminal cases registered against him, had a bounty of Rs 5 lakhs on him. (WITH IANS INPUTS)