Bounty on fugitive criminal Vikas Dubey wanted in killing of 8 cops increased to Rs 2.5 lakh

"The cash reward for the arrest of Vikas Dubey has been increased to Rs 2.50 lakh by UP Director General of Police HC Awasthy," Additional Director General Law and Order Prashant Kumar said on Monday, reported NDTV.

Eight policemen, including a Deputy Superintendent of Police, were gunned down by Dubey and his accomplices in the intervening night of June 2 and June 3, when a police team went to arrest him after a fresh case of attempted murder was filed against him.

There are around 60 cases of murder and kidnapping pending against the criminal, including one in which he had killed BJP leader and the then minister Santosh Shukla inside Shibli police station back in 2001.

Dubey, said to be in his 50s and with strong political connections, had been arrested several times in the past but had always escaped conviction.

The bounty on him was earlier increased from Rs 50,000 to one lakh, which has been raised to Rs 2.5 lakh as he continues to escape police even after three days of killing and injuring a large number of policemen.

The Indo-Nepal border areas have been alerted and his pictures with reward money have been put up in different places as police suspects that Dubey may try to escape to Nepal, said the NDTV report. Dubey had been last traced to Auraiya and is believed to have escaped to Madhya Pradesh or Rajasthan, the report added.

Already four policemen suspected to have tipped off Dubey about police teams heading to Bikaru village to arrest him have been suspended, said the report.

According to a Hindustan Times report, Dinesh Kumar P, Kanpur’s senior superintendent of police, said two sub-inspectors Kunwar Pal and KK Sharma and constable Rajeev of Chaubeypur police station were among those who have been suspended, after investigating their role in leaking the information. Their call records were checked to ascertain their involvement, the report said, adding that the process to terminate their employment would begin soon.

Earlier, Vinay Tiwari, Station Officer of Chaubeypur Police Station, under which Vikas Dubey's village falls, has been suspended for tipping off Vikas Dubey, said reports.

Dubey's aide Daya Shankar Agnihotri, who was arrested on Sunday and suspected to be a part of the team that laid a trap to kill the policemen, said in a video statement that a caller from a police station informed the gangster about the raid, the HT report said.

The criminals had blocked the road to the village using a bulldozer, forcing the police team to get down from their vehicles and enter on foot, which gave Dubey and his men advantage over the cops. The shooters rained bullets from rooftops on policemen who could not see them well and killed eight cops on the spot and injured seven other.

According to media reports, Vikas Dubey's uncle was killed soon after the police killings by the cops.