Police officer suspended in Vikas Dubey case files petition in Supreme Court for protection apprehending danger to his life

Krishan Kumar Sharma and his wife have filed a petition in the Supreme Court seeking protection of their life and liberty apprehending danger to their life. He is a sub-inspector and was suspended for allegedly tipping off gangster Vikas Dubey about a police raid.

Petitioners have also sought the constitution of a Special Investigation Team to investigate into an FIR lodged to probe into the killings of eight police personnel in the intervening night of July 2 & 3. Alternately, it has been prayed that the probe be transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

In his interim prayer, Sharma who is presently lodged in Mati Jail in Kanpur Dehat has sought a direction to the Uttar Pradesh Government not to take him for any interrogation outside the jail till further orders in the present petition by the court.

It is contended that petitioner's wife has a minor boy, being 6 years of age and a widowed mother-in-law and has to look after them and in these circumstances, she is facing hardship to approach any other court except the apex court for the protection of the life of herself, her husband and her family members.

Pursuant to the killing of eight police personnel allegedly by gagster Vikash Dubey and his associates, the state government had constituted several investigative teams of the Special Investigation Team (SIT), Crime-Branch Crime Investigation Department (CBCID), Special Task Force (STF) as well as police teams of the State of U.P. in order to probe the alleged incident. 

Read also: PUCL seeks Supreme Court direction for SIT probe in Vikas Dubey Encounter case

On the same day of the registration of the FIR i.e. July 3, two accused persons, namely Atul Dubey and Prem Prakash Pandey were killed while escaping custody of the police. This, according to the petitioners, shown in an encounter is the suspicious circumstance. 

As per the averments made in the plea, on July 8, a Special Task Force had arrested another accused person namely Amar Dubey who had been allegedly killed in an encounter allegedly while escaping from the custody of the arresting team. 

"Thus, the death of the accused namely Amar Dubey shown in an encounter in Maudaha, District Hamirpur, Uttar Pradesh are the suspicious circumstances", Sharma says.

Sharma has also alleged suspicion at the encounter death of two other accused persons namely Ranbir Shukla alias Bauva Shukla on July 9.

On July 9, Madhya Pradesh Police had arrested the main accused Vikas Dubey in Ujjain. He was later handed over to the UP police. On July 10, the UP police killed Vikas Dubey in encounter after he allegedly tried to escape from the police custody.

Petitioner has argued that the extra-judicial killings of all of the above accused shows the plentiful conduct and modus operandi of all the investigative agencies involved in investigating the present FIR. 

"It is clearly evident that the institutions tasked with the protection of law and order in the state have taken law into their own hands and have been killing the accused persons as soon as arresting such persons", the petitioner says.  

Sharma is accused of informing the accused persons about the police raid to arrest the accused persons. He has, however, contended that he was directed by his Incharge namely Vinay Tiwari to remain at the police station and told him in the night that he was going in a team for the arrest of some criminal as per the instructions to him on phone with further instructions to conduct a cross-checking at GT crossing road. 

Yesterday, People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) filed an application in the Supreme Court seeking a Special Investigation Team (SIT) probe into the encounters of Vikas Dubey and his associates Amar Dubey and Prabhat Mishra. This occurred in the aftermath of Vikas Dubey killing eight Uttar Pradesh policemen who had gone to arrest him.