The killing of gangster Vikas Dubey by the Uttar Pradesh Police on July 10 is a chilling reminder of Chief Minister Adityanath’s threat i...
The killing of gangster Vikas Dubey by the Uttar Pradesh Police on July 10 is a chilling reminder of Chief Minister Adityanath’s threat in a July 2017 televised interview.
“Agar apradh karenge, toh thok diye jayenge,” Adityanath said. If they commit crime, they will be hit.
The chief minister’s open endorsement of extra-judicial executions has clearly influenced the conduct of the state’s police.
According to the Indian Express, since the Adityanath government came to power in March 2017, there have been 6,145 “encounter operations”, in which 119 people have died and 2,258 injured.
On July 2, Dubey and his aides ambushed an Uttar Pradesh Police party that was attempting to arrest the gangster in his village in Kanpur, leaving eight policemen dead. After the shootout, Dubey disappeared. It was only on July 9 that he was arrested in Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh. The next day., as an Uttar Pradesh Police convoy was bringing Dubey back to Kanpur, he was shot dead en route. The police claimed that he had attempted to escape after his vehicle met with an accident. They said he had snatched a policeman’s weapon and opened fire, leaving them no option but to shoot him dead.
Dubey was the 119th person to have been shot...
