Mau (Uttar Pradesh): Just over a fortnight after the Supreme Court in slain gangster Vikas Dubey's case observed that "don't resort to further encounters to eliminate dreaded gangsters", the father of slain criminal Rakesh Pandey alias Hanuman Pandey questioned Uttar Pradesh Police's Special Task Force (STF) after they killed his son and asked the government to explain the encounter.
On Sunday morning, Baldutt Pandey, father of Rakesh Pandey, who gunned down in an encounter in Lucknow, raised questions on the 'murder' of his son.
"My son had been acquitted in all cases and did not have any criminal case registered against him. Where was the need for an encounter? Besides, he was picked up by the STF from our house on Saturday night and shot dead on Sunday," he told reporters.
This was after apex court's observation on Uttar Pradesh Police's modus operandi in the Dubey case was made on July 22.
Also read: Gangster killed in encounter in Uttar Pradesh
Baldutt Pandey, retired army personnel, said that his wife was ailing and undergoing treatment at the King George's Medical University (KGMU).
"My son was taking care of my wife all this while. His encounter is something that the Yogi government should explain," he said.
SSP STF Sudhir Singh, meanwhile, said that five persons, including Hanuman Pandey, were trying to flee in an Innova. "We managed to corner Hanuman but four of his accomplices fled," he said.
Hanuman, who was an accused in the 2005 murder case of BJP leader Krishnanand Rai, was shot by STF and taken to the hospital where the doctors declared him brought dead. Baldutt Pandey said that he was unaware of the fact that his son carried a reward of Rs one lakh on his head.
Rai, who was murdered on November 29, 2005, along with six other persons, was a sitting MLA from the Mohammadabad constituency. The investigation of the case was transferred from UP Police to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). In 2013, the Supreme Court transferred the case from Ghazipur to Delhi after Rai's wife Alka Rai filed a plea in the court.
In 2019, Alka Rai had approached the Delhi High Court challenging the acquittal of gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari and others in the case. The CBI court while acquitting all the accused observed that it was a gruesome case involving the murder of seven persons. The eyewitnesses and other material witnesses had turned hostile during the trial.
Meanwhile, a petition is being filed by one Vishal Tiwari in the Supreme Court in which the petitioner is seeking an impartial judicial probe into the encounter.
Also read: PIL in SC seeking independent probe into gangster Rakesh Pandey's encounter
Dubey and five of his aides were killed in encounters with Uttar Pradesh Police between July 3 and July 10, after the slain gangster and his men ambushed and killed eight policemen in Bikru village on the intervening night of July 2 and 3.
With inputs from IANS
