Gangsters like Vikas Dubey who killed eight policemen in Uttar Pradesh have as much a right to the protection of the law from being killed by the UP police as much as Jeyaraj and his son Bennix have from being tortured to death by the Tamil Nadu police.
The so-called alleged "encounter" killing of the dreaded UP gangster has culminated in a clutch of petitions being filed in the Supreme Court in protest asking for the top court to monitor such killings.
The only difference between the two deaths in police custody is that while Vikas Dubey was a dreaded gangster who killed eight policemen, Jeyaraj and Bennix were innocent traders who were arrested for keeping their mobile repair shop open beyond the stipulated time. One can argue that Vikas Dubey's killing was justified but unjustified in the case of the Tamil Nadu father-son duo who had earlier allegedly spoken against the police. They were reported to police by an autorickshaw driver.
But there appear discrepancies between the versions of the Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh police in what seems to be a scripted version of the encounter. The MP police say a police constable was sent to pick up the gangster on a motorcycle whereas the UP police deny this and say that Vikas Dubey snatched the revolver of a constable inside a car which had overturned. Two contrarian versions for the same gangster appear suspicious.
In fact, a petition seeking that Vikas Dubey be protected from a fake encounter was heard soon after news broke that the gangster was arrested in Ujjain. Unfortunately, the judges did not grant any relief.
After news of the UP police killing the gangster was broken, at least four petitions were filed in the Supreme Court seeking a court-monitored probe into the gangster being killed in an alleged fake encounter.
First off the board was advocate Anoop Awasthi who sought a CBI/NIA probe into how the gangster died after he was arrested in Ujjain and transported to different places in MP and UP before being killed.
A second PIL filed by the PUCL sought an SIT probe into how the gangster was killed.
A third petition was filed by Mumbai advocate Ghanashyam Upadhyay seeking the court to monitor the probe into how the gangster was killed.
Upadhyay had earlier filed a petition in the Supreme Court predicting the gangster would immediately be eliminated in a fake encounter "because he would expose top politicians who had protected him and exploited him against their rivals."
"I was 100 % sure the UP police would kill him in a fake encounter because he would expose all of them in court. The police acted as tools of their political masters. They were pressurised to kill Vikas Dubey, and they succumbed to this pressure," alleged Upadhyay in an exclusive telephonic interview to Sakal Times.
Upadhyay pointed out that if the Supreme Court had granted interim relief, Vikas Dubey might have been alive.
“No doubt he was a dreaded gangster. But the judiciary is there to ensure the rule of law prevails. The Supreme Court would have upheld a death sentence if pronounced by the trial courts. But if the police take the law into their own hands, then anarchy will replace law-and-order,” exclaimed Upadhyay agitatedly over the telephone.
Advocate Upadhyay sent a copy of his petition filed under Article 32 to Sakal Times.
“However, heinous the crimes committed by Vikas Dubey, the UP Police cannot take the law into their hands. If they do so, this would result in the Talibanisation of India,” he claimed in his petition.
“After the UP CM Yogi Adityanath declared that none of these gangsters would be spared, all the accomplices of Vikas Dubey were gunned down in cold blood. The police bulldozed his house and utensils and reduced it to rubble,” Upadhyay declared.
Upadhyay’s prediction that the gangster would be killed in cold blood got support from the former super cop Julio Ribeiro who told a journalist that it was 100 per cent certain that Vikas Dubey was killed in cold blood. From his experience as a police commissioner of Mumbai who later headed the Anti-Terrorism Squad in Punjab during the heyday of the Khalistan movement, this top cop seems to have echoed the sentiments of advocate Upadhyay. However, the two do not know of each other.
Vikas Dubey meticulously planned his surrender in another state. He knew if he gave himself up in UP, he would be killed on orders from the executive whose top politicians and police he would expose. So, Dubey reasoned if he surrendered to the police in MP before journalists, he could not be killed in custody. Advocates like Prashant Bhushan agree with advocate Upadhyay on this. But Vikas Dubey’s calculations did not factor in that the UP police have contempt for the media and how it influences public opinion and also for the judiciary. No amount of writ petitions filed in the Supreme Court will bring back Vikas Dubey. As thousands of Indians wish, he appears to be better off dead than alive. So, he cannot spill the beans on those who used him.
Caste, crime, politics and power
Like it or not, Uttar Pradesh is the Ulta Pradesh with a clearly defined nexus between caste, crime, politics and power. The THAKUR-YADAV-PANDEY-JAT-OBC groups have thrown up their own gangsters. When these castes such as the Bhumihars or the Yadavs come to power, they do not openly need to use gangsters like Vikas Dubey because some of their ministers or MLAs are gangsters who run their mini-fiefdoms from their plush offices within the government.
Nevertheless, Vikas Dubey claimed the patronage of UP Assembly speaker Hari Shankar and BJP MLAs Bhagwati Prasad Sagar and Abhijeet Sangha. Both MLAs naturally denied any links with Vikas Dubey although two videos of 2006 and 2017 of Singh and Sangha have surfaced.
So, there is no doubt that if Vikas Dubey stood trial for murder, he would have spilt the beans on powerful politicians and bureaucrats who patronised him. Vikas Dubey was a Brahmin whereas the Thakur government of Yogi Adityanath had ignored the Brahmins who had been out-of-power in UP for 32 years. The last Brahmin chief minister was Narayan Dutt Tiwari who not only fathered an illegitimate son but was caught on camera having an orgy with several women in bed after he was made a Governor.
His son, Rohit Shekhar Tiwari, took Narayan Dutt Tiwari to court to force him to accept he was his biological father. At the age of 88, Narayan Dutt Tiwari married his 62-year-old paramour to recognise his illegitimate son. But on April 16, 2019, lawyer Apoorva Shukla allegedly murdered her husband Rohit Shekhar Tiwari for his alleged liaison with his female relative. Like father like son- as the adage goes.
Just as in tiny Goa, the former revenue minister Rohan Khaunte is alleged to be funding notorious gangster Zenito Cardozo, in UP as well, gangsters like Vikas Dubey offer money and muscle power to political parties which select the top police officers of the state after coming to power. Those who received largesse from the gangsters like Vikas Dubey will then repay them by diluting the charges against them as one of the police officers who were killed alleged his superior who was the DIG of the STF had diluted the charges against Vikas Dubey.
So we have Raghuraj Pratap Singh alias Raja Bhaiyya, a Rajput by caste, who commands all Rajput votes in his constituency of Kunda in eastern UP was jailed under POTA when the UP cabinet under chief minister Mayawati, declared him a terrorist. He is a notorious history-sheeter with charges of murder, attempt to murder, abduction, kidnapping and dacoity registered against him. But when the Yadav-led Akhilesh Yadav government came to power in UP, they not only dropped POTA charges against him but also made him cabinet minister in-charge of jails which shocked everybody.
So, what an OBC chief minister like Mayawati did in 2002 by declaring Raja Bhaiyya a terrorist under POTA was promptly undone by the Yadavs who succeeded Mayawati.
Raja Bhaiyya does not really need to run his mafia because the Thakurs are in power in UP. Just as the Thakurs had their own gangsters like Birendra Shahi, the Brahmins had their mafia-like Hari Shankar Tiwari. And Vikas Dubey’s so-called encounter killing has alleged all the Brahmins who have vowed to burn down all theatres in the state if a film is made on him.
The legendary turf war between Hari Shankar Tiwari and Virender Sahi both from the Gorakhpur assembly seat saw notorious gangster Prakash Shukla kill Virender Sahi. Next on his hit list was Hari Shankar Tiwari.
Prakash Shukla was a Brahmin gangster who killed one Rakesh Tiwari for whistling at his sister in 1993. Shukla fled to Bangkok but returned to UP as he could not support himself. He killed politician-cum-gangster Virender Sahi in 1997 and received Rs 6 crore to shoot dead the then UP chief minister Kalyan Singh. But on 22nd September 1998, the police killed Prakash Shukla.
Poorvanchal is an assembly segment of Gorakhpur constituency. It is the Chicago of India because these gangsters are contract killers from the Mumbai underworld which was the crime capital of India during the 1970s and 1980s.
Mukhtar Ansari was acquitted by a Delhi court for the murder of Krishanand Rai in 2005. All the prosecution witnesses against Ansari refused to depose against him because they were allegedly bribed or threatened. After spending 13 years in jail, Mukhtar Ansari was acquitted as the prime accused in July 2019. He was elected from the Mau constituency for a record five times. Hence, this emerged as a Muslim versus Bhumihar Brahmin gangland killing.
Mukhtar Ansari also allegedly killed Awadesh Rai, the brother of another Bhumihar caste gangster-turned-politician, Ajay Rai. He was fielded by the Congress against the BJP’s Narendra Modi, from the holy city of Varanasi. Earlier, it was speculated that the Congress would give its ticket to its national general secretary, Priyanka Vadra.
Ajay Rai was a five times MLA who had nine criminal cases of extortion, attempt to murder, dacoity, murder, abduction and kidnapping registered against him. He started his career in the youth wing of the BJP in 1996 before crossing over to the Samajwadi Party and finally to the Congress. He was widely believed to be a lamb sent to the slaughterhouse by the Congress in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections because he had zero chances of winning against Narendra Modi.
So, just as the Bhumihars had their own gangster-turned-MLA in the shape of Ajay Eso, the Muslims had Atik Ahmed who was the Samajwadi Party MP between 2004-09 from Phoolpur constituency. He was accused of abduction, extortion, criminal intimidation, but in the 2014 election, he filed his affidavit declaring there were no criminal cases pending against him. When the Yadav government was in power, they did not need to use gangsters because an MP such as Atik Ahmed ran his mafia from inside the jail or from his MP’s office at Phoolpur.
Atique Ahmed threatened a businessman with assault if he did not pay extortion money. The businessman was severely beaten by jail guards and Atique Ahmed’s goons right inside the jail. So, Ahmed proved his clout whether inside or outside the jail.
When Vishwanath Pratap Singh was the UP chief minister circa 1981-82-83, he vowed to crush the gangster-police-politician nexus which were the three legs of a stool with these gangsters offering muscle and money power to political parties who ordered top police officers not to lodge FIRs against them in the Hindi heartland. VP Singh ordered the killing of 299 gangsters and arrest of 1,228 others irrespective of their caste or political backing. In revenge, these gangsters killed his elder brother who was a senior judge of the Allahabad High Court. Justice Chandrasekhar Prasad Singh was shot dead with his 15-year-old son in his car, proving these gangsters continued to rule the Hindi heartland of MP-UP-Bihar-Uttarakhand as they do today.
To deny caste plays a major role in UP politics as controlled by their gangsters like Vikas Dubey is like denying fire needs oxygen to burn. So, the Raja of Manda VP Singh had to resign as UP chief minister in 1982 when gangsters killed his elder brother Justice Chandrasekhar Prasad Singh when he allegedly went in a jeep to hunt in the forest – a charge vehemently denied because hunting was illegal. The tyre of his jeep got punctured, and as it took a long time to change it, the senior judge took the wheel to drive his jeep home. It was night when two torches picked out the jeep and brought it to a halt. Gunshots were heard, and the judge with his 15-year-old son slumped inside the jeep with bullets riddling their bodies. His then 13-year-old son escaped with injuries. Today, this son must be a 51-year-old man.
So, VP Singh saw Phoolan Devi massacre 20 Rajputs in the Behmai massacre who had ravaged her in 1981. He quit as UP chief minister in 1982 accepting he had miserably failed to extinguish the dacoits-gangsters-police-politician mafia just as he later quit the Rajiv Gandhi government due to his failure to force the latter to reveal who received the kickbacks in the HDW submarine deal.
So, while the Congress encouraged gangster-police-politician nexus during their winning elections in UP during 1951-67, even others such as Charan Singh who had the support of Jats-Gujjars-Kurmis-Yadavs-OBCs refused to kill the gangsters thrown up by these caste groups. Like VP Singh who became Prime Minister of a minority government but had to resign after the BJP withdrew support, Charan Singh was a puppet prime minister propped up by Indira Gandhi.
In conclusion, just as the Indian society cannot be reformed without the abolition of caste, so also politics can never become clean when gangsters like Vikas Dubey are killed to silence them from divulging which top police officers and politicians patronised them. But cleaning UP politics is like eliminating casteism from the orthodox Hindu society. Both are utopian ideals. Nice to debate but impossible to implement.
(Dr Olav Albuquerque holds the M.Sc., LL.M and PhD degrees from the University of Mumbai. He is a senior journalist, columnist and analyst.)