LUCKNOW: Kanpur Police on Monday arrested slain gangster Vikas Dubey's close accomplice and financier Jaikant alias Jai Bajpai after registering an FIR against him.
Jai was officially arrested by Nazirabad police station cops after being kept in detention for 15 days. Jai has also been charged with helping Dubey in realising his evil designs of killing the cops who had gone to arrest him in a case of attempt to murder on July 2/3.
Jai Bajpai is accused of facilitating logistics to Dubey for the ambush on the police party. He is accused of allegedly providing Dubey cash and cartridges hours before the Bikru village episode which had left eight cops dead and seven injured, said a police statement.
A police communique confirmed that Bajpai and Shukla were booked under sections 147 (punishment for rioting), 148 (rioting, armed with deadly weapon), 149 (every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object), 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder), 395 (Punishment for dacoity), 412 (dishonestly receiving property stolen in the commission of a dacoity) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and section 7 of the Criminal Law Amendment (CLA) Act read with section 120B (criminal conspiracy), IPC.
A separate FIR under sections 29 and 30 of the Arms Act has also been registered against Bajpai for providing cartridges to Dubey illegally, the police statement said.
The police have also seized the licensed pistol and passport of Bajpai who has been an affluent businessman and used to managed Vikas Dubey’s finances. According to reports, transactions worth Rs 75 crore have taken place between the two in the past one year through six bank accounts.
As per the police sources, Dubey had called up Bajpai on July 1. The next day, along with his aide Prashant Shukla alias Dubblu, a resident of Kohna, Bajpai went to Bikru to hand over Rs 2 lakh in cash and 25 cartridges of .32 bore revolvers to Dubey.
Dubey had briefed Bajpai about his plan to launch an attack on the police party that had gone to the village to arrest him. He had also asked Bajpai to arrange for at least three sports utility vehicles (SUVs) for him and his gang.
Accordingly, Bajpai took three SUVs to pick up Dubey and his men and take them to safer places, but failed to do so due to intensive police patrolling, the statement said. On July 4, Bajpai left his SUVs in Kakadev area of Kanpur and went underground, a police official said.
Soon after seizing the three vehicles, police raided the possible hideouts of Bajpai and nabbed him within hours, a senior official said on the condition of anonymity.
Subsequently, he was handed over to the Special Task Force (STF) and taken to its headquarters in Lucknow, where he was kept in detention for 15 days, the official said.