Kanpur ambush: STF DIG transferred amid row over slain Dy SP’s letter to him

The Uttar Pradesh government on Tuesday removed the state’s STF DIG, Anant Deo, amid a raging controversy over a letter purportedly written to him by slain Dy SP Devendra Mishra alleging a nexus between gangster Vikas Dubey and suspended Chaubeypur police station in-charge.

The Uttar Pradesh government on Tuesday removed the state’s STF DIG, Anant Deo, amid a raging controversy over a letter purportedly written to him by slain Dy SP Devendra Mishra alleging a nexus between gangster Vikas Dubey and suspended Chaubeypur police station in-charge. A government release issued here on late Tuesday night said Deo has been transferred to Provincial Armed Constabulary, Moradabad.

Anant Deo, now a deputy inspector general of police, was Kanpur’s senior superintendent of police when the letter was purportedly sent to him by the slain police officer. The police had said though there was no record of the letter, which surfaced on social media, at the SSP's office or other offices, they would probe into the matter.

Lucknow Range IG Lakshmi Singh has been assigned the probe which has already started. Anant Deo had on Tuesday morning told PTI that the signature on the letter does not match that of the slain officer. The letter carried no serial number or date.

In the letter supposedly written in March, Dy SP Mishra had accused Chaubeypur police station in-charge Vinay Tiwari of diluting the charges levelled in a case against the gangster. Mishra was among the eight policemen killed in an ambush allegedly laid by Vikas Dubey at his Bikru village near Kanpur.

Vinay Tiwari is one of the four Chaubeypur station policemen suspended after the attack, under suspicion of having tipped off Dubey that a police team was on its way to arrest him. Meanwhile, the government also transferred three other IPS officers, including Moradabad SSP Amit Pathak and Varanasi SSP Prabhakar Chaudhary.

The two officials were posted in place of each other, the release said, adding that Commandant Sudhir Kumar Singh of Agra-based 15th battalion of PAC has been shifted as to Lucknow as STF SSP..