An aide of fugitive gangster Vikas Dubey, who was arrested by the Haryana Police today, has tested positive for coronavirus.
Kartikey alias Prabhat was hiding with Vikas Dubey in Faridabad and was arrested by the local police, along with two others.
He has now been found to be coronavirus positive and has been sent to transit remand for 24 hours.
Two other aides of Vikas Dubey, Ankur and Shravan, who were also arrested by the Haryana Police, have been sent to 14-day judicial custody. They tested negative for coronavirus.
On Wednesday, the Haryana Police arrested three alleged accomplices of Vikas Dubey in a raid at a house in Faridabad after a tip-off that the gangster wanted for the killing of eight policemen in an ambush was holed up there.
CCTV footage of a person resembling the gangster trying to book a room at a hotel in Faridabad on Tuesday night went viral. However, the man managed to flee before the police reached there.
According to an FIR lodged in Faridabad, on a tip-off that Vikas Dubey and Kartikey were hiding in a house in New Indira Nagar complex in Haripur of Kheri Pul area, a team of Faridabad Crime Branch surrounded a house on Tuesday midnight.
When the police team asked the residents of the house to open the door, one person ran towards the roof and opened fire while two in the house tried to stop the team from entering, it stated.
Later, the three persons were nabbed and they have been identified as Kartikey, Shravan and his son Ankur who gave shelter.
Though the FIR mentioned that there was information about the presence of Vikas Dubey in the house, it did not clarify whether the gangster was actually present there or not.
Asked whether the person in the CCTV footage was Vikas Dubey or not, Uttar Pradesh Police’s ADG (Law and Order) Prashant Kumar said, “It’s a matter of probe.”
Of the four pistols seized from the three arrested men, two belong to policemen slain in Kanpur. The three men have been booked under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code, including 212 (harbouring offender) and 307 (attempt to murder).
Encounters in connection with the deadly Kanpur ambush also took place Hamirpur, and Kanpur district’s Chaubepur on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.
Eight Uttar Pradesh Police personnel, including a deputy superintendent of police, were killed and seven others injured in a firefight with criminals in Kanpur on the intervening night of July 2 and July 3.
Seven others, including a civilian, were injured in the attack from a rooftop on a police team after it entered Bikru village to arrest Vikas Dubey, a history-sheeter who has about 60 criminal cases against him.
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