The killing of eight policemen in Kanpur on the night of July by accomplices of gangster Vikas Dubey is too tragic for words. My personal s...
The killing of eight policemen in Kanpur on the night of July by accomplices of gangster Vikas Dubey is too tragic for words. My personal sense of loss is deep even though I am no longer a serving member of the Uttar Pradesh Police, a force I had the honour to lead until April 2017. My former colleagues have fallen to a hail of bullets from a desperado whose unprovoked action continues to baffle me. Why did he do it?
Vikas Dubey, as it now emerges, was a beneficiary of the police-political nexus that has taken deep roots in Uttar Pradesh over the last few decades. What prompted him to disturb the equilibrium that gave him the space to be a criminal, a land grabber, a political power broker, a Brahmin Robin Hood all at the same time?
Let me try to explain. Dube is a resident of the rural Kanpur area Chaubepur. He started his career in the early 1990s when his disdain for the law and proclivity for taking matters into his own hands brought him the patronage of a very senior local politician, who was in the ruling party at the time.
This breakthrough was critical for young Dube. He...
