Bikru killings by Vikas Dubey gang: 23 accused sentenced to 10 years in jail

A special court on Tuesday sentenced 23 accused to 10 years in jail in connection with the 2020 killing of eight policemen, including a DSP, in an ambush by the Vikas Dubey gang in Bikru village, a senior police official said.

Seven other accused were acquitted in the case by the special Gangster Act court in Kanpur Dehat district, Special Director General (Law and Order) Prashant Kumar said in a statement issued in Lucknow.

The court in Mati in Kanpur Dehat district gave its final judgement in the Bikru case on September 5, 2023 and sentenced 23 out of the 30 accused persons to 10 years of imprisonment. It also imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 on each of them, it said.

Mati is the district headquarters of Kanpur Dehat district.

Slain gangster Vikas Dubey's aide Shyamu Bajpai (35) and his alleged financier Jaikanth Bajpai alias Jay (37) are among the 23 accused who were sentenced by Additional District Judge-5 Durgesh.

Earlier, 41 people including Vikas Dubey's close aides Daya Shankar Agnihotri, Shyamu Bajpai, Jahan Yadav, Shashikant Panday, Shivam Dubey, Gopal Saini, Heeru Dubey, Shiv Tiwari, Vishnu Pal, and Ram Singh were either arrested by the Special Task Force and Kanpur police or surrendered before the court, Additional DCP West (Kanpur) Lakhan Singh Yadav said.

While the Gangster Act was invoked against 30 of them, the remaining 11, including some policemen and women, were not booked under the law, he said.

Eight policemen, including Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Devendra Mishra, were ambushed in Kanpur's Bikru village when they were on their way to arrest Vikas Dubey shortly after midnight on July 3, 2020.

Vikas Dubey was killed in an encounter on July 10, 2020 as he tried to escape from custody when a police vehicle bringing him from Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh to Kanpur met with an accident, the police had said.

Following a search operation after the July 3 incident, two of his associates -- Prem Prakash Pandey and Atul Dubey -- were killed in an encounter in Kanpur, they had said.

On July 8, 2020, Amar Dubey, another close aide of the gangster who carried a reward of Rs 50,000 on his head, was killed by the police in an encounter in Maudaha village of Hamirpur district.

The following day, another more aides of the gangster -- Kartikeya alias Prabhat and Bauwa Dubey alias Praveen -- were killed in separate encounters in Kanpur and Etawah districts, the police had said.

Besides Shyamu Bajpai and Jaikanth Bajpai, those sentenced by the court on Tuesday are Heeru Dubey alias Dharmendra (35), Jahan Yadav (49), Daya Shankar Agnihotri alias Kallu (47), Islam Beig alias Bablu Musalman (40), Ramu Bajpai alias Ravindra (35), Shashikant Pandey alias Sonu (32), Shivam Dubey alias Ajeet (24), Govind Saini (35), Umakant alias Guddan (48) and Shivam Dubey (23).

Dhirendra Kumar Dwivedi alias Dheeru (35), Manish alias Beeru (28), Suresh Verma (55), Gopal Saini (30), Shiv Tiwari alias Ashutosh (34), Vishnu Pal alias Jiledar (48), Ram Singh Yadav (35), Veer Singh alias Nannu (32), Chotu Shukla (31), Akhilesh Dixit alias Shyam (33) and Raju Pal (27) were also sentenced by the court.

Those acquitted are Arvind Trivedi alias Guddan (46), Sushil Kumar Tiwari alias Sonu (33), Bal Govind (52), Rajendra Mishra (49), Ramesh Chandra (58), Sanjay Dubey alias Sanju (48) and Prashant Shukla aka Dabbu (47).