Lucknow, Nov 12 (PTI) The Uttar Pradesh government on Thursday suspended senior IPS officer Anant Dev after a probe by a special investigation team pointed at a nexus between police and gangster Vikas Dubey, allegedly responsible for the death of eight policemen.
The Deputy Inspector General (DIG)-rank officer is a former police chief of Kanpur, the district in which the policemen were ambushed shortly after midnight on July 2.
Although the attack on policemen in Bikru village, under Chaubeypur police station area, took place after Dev's tenure, the SIT report submitted to the state government last week has named him.
"Anant Dev has been suspended. The action has been taken on the basis of the SIT report," Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Awanish Kumar Awasthi told PTI.
Dev was posted with the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) in Moradabad.
The eight policemen were mowed down by bullets fired from the rooftops as they headed to Vikas Dubey's home in Bikru village to arrest him.
Dubey was shot dead by police on July 10 when he was allegedly trying to escape from their custody while being brought back to Kanpur after his arrest in Ujjain.
Before this, the UP Police had gunned down five other alleged accomplices in separate encounters.
Soon after the Bikru ambush, the UP government also cracked down on several policemen at the local level, suspending or transferring them.
The three-member SIT has pointed at a nexus between police and the slain gangster, officials said.
It handed over a 3,500-word report to the state government last week, recommending action against police personnel and administration officials.
The report carried 36 recommendations, giving details of the alleged role of some officers and 80 police personnel in the Kanpur episode.
It came to the fore that policemen used to give tip-offs to Dubey, and on the night of the ambush he was aware that a police team was coming to Bikru, a senior officer said.
The SIT also referred to alleged police failure in taking action against Dubey, who faced several criminal cases, and in securing his conviction in court. The report accused personnel posted at Kanpur's Chaubeypur police station and senior officers of negligence, sources said.
The SIT analysed Dubey's mobile phone records going back a year and found that some policemen were in regular touch with him, they said.
The state government constituted the SIT led by Additional Chief Secretary Sanjay Bhoosreddy, with Additional DG Hari Ram Sharma and DIG Ravinder Goud as its members, on July 11.
The SIT was initially asked to submit its report by July 31 after looking into all angles, studying related documents and conducting inspections in Kanpur. The deadline was later extended.
