LUCKNOW: After remaining elusive for around a week, dreaded gangster Vikas Dubey, the mastermind of the gruesome killing of eight policemen during an encounter in Bikru village in Kanpur last Thursday, gave the cops the slip and travelled 1200 km from Chaubeypur in Kanpur to Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh across five states despite high alert.
As per the sources in UP STF, the gangster’s trail began in the wee hours on Friday (July 3). At around 2 am, the gangster fled his house by pillion-riding with Kartikeya alias Prabhat Mishra, one of his accomplices. They reached a friend's hose at Shivli in Kanpur Dehat and from there sneaked into an adjoining forest at 5 am on Friday.
He stayed put in Shivli for next two days dodging a huge police force of 40 police stations and UP STF who had been tracking the criminal. From Shivli, Dubey took a lift in a truck and covered around 92 km to reach Auriyya at 5 am on Sunday.
In Auraiyya also, he managed to evade the police despite intense combing operation.
Dubey left Auriyya on July 5 and reach Badarpur, New Delhi, covering 385 km in an SUV the same day. At 10 am next morning (July 6), UP STF sleuths reached a hotel in Badarpur following a tip-off about his presence but by then the gangster had reached Faridabad in Haryana.
His next location was traced to a sweet shop in Faridabad in the afternoon (3:20 pm) of Tuesday (July 7). However, there is no detail or evidence of his destination in the period between Monday and Tuesday afternoon. Video footage showed him coming out of the shop and taking an auto.
It is believed that Dubey spent two days in Faridabad with one of his relatives. He then tried to book a room in Sri Sasaram guesthouse but was refused. He left the place after he was tipped off about the UP STF and Haryana police following him.
On the basis of the information about his presence in Faridabad, Haryana crime branch reached greater Faridabad and nabbed three of his aides and recovered weapons snatched from the police party in Kanpur. But Dubey again gave cops the slip and managed to flee Faridabad on Wednesday morning.
UP STF believes that Dubey returned to New Delhi from Faridabad in a private car and then moved to Jaipur in Rajasthan on the same day covering 269 km.
He was spotted by locals in Jaipur while taking a bus to Kota. He is believed to have stayed in Kota for sometime before leaving the city for Ujjain in MP on a bus at 1 am on July 9. He reached the MP town at 8 am covering 252 km before being nabbed by the police.