The Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (STF) on Monday arrested seven people from Kanpur Dehat for allegedly providing shelter to gangster Vikas Dubey following a shootout that killed eight policemen in Kanpur, and also for their involvement in sale and purchase of weapons used by him.

The Kanpur unit of the STF claimed to have recovered arms and ammunition looted by Dubey and his associates.

On the intervening night of July 2 and 3 last year, a police team had reached Bikru village in Kanpur to arrest Dubey. Eight policemen were killed and another six were injured in an ambush laid by Dubey and his aides. A few days later, Dubey was shot dead in an alleged police encounter after he had allegedly tried to escape from police custody.

According to a statement issued by the STF, those arrested have been identified as Kanpur Dehat residents Vishnu Kashyap, Aman Shukla, Ramji aka Radhey, Abhinav Tiwari, Sanjay Parihar, Shubham Pal and Madhya Pradesh resident Manish Yadav. The weapons recovered from them include a made-in-America semi-automatic rifle, one 9 MM illegal carbine, one illegal revolver, one 12 bore SBBL gun, two .315 bore pistols, and several live cartridges along with phones, one Omni car and documents.

The statement added that since the Bikru incident, six accused have been killed in different police encounters and several arrests have been made, but the police were unable to trace the weapons used in the ambush and identify those who had provided shelter to Dubey and his associates.

“Several STF units were given the responsibility to trace the weapons and

arrest those who had provided shelter. Later, some unconfirmed sources suggested that after the July incident, Dubey and his aides Amar Dubey and Prabhat Mishra (all three dead now) were hiding in Kanpur Dehat and neighbouring districts for the next two days. They escaped to Delhi and Faridabad after hiding the weapons in Kanpur Dehat. It was also informed that some of those who kept the weapons are living in Delhi. Some of the weapons have also been sold in Madhya Pradesh. Plans to sell the remaining firearms were in process,” read the statement.

“To confirm this information, a team of the STF went to Kanpur Dehat, Auraiya, Delhi and Madhya Pradesh. Later, information came that a deal has been finalised to sell the remaining weapons to a person from MP’s Bhind and they will be sold near an underpass on the service road leading to Kanpur Dehat Industrial Area. Based on the information, the STF team laid a trap and made the arrests,” it added.

During interrogation it was found that one of arrested accused, Kashyap, and deceased Mishra were childhood friends. Through Kashyap, Mishra came to know his relative, Radhey. After the Bikru incident, Mishra met Kashyap who provided them a car that was used by Dubey and others. From there they went to Radhey’s house in Rasoolabad area. Later, Pal had provided shelter to Dubey and his aides for two days and provided them newspapers to keep track of police investigation.

Later, when Dubey was killed, the accused believed that the police did not have any knowledge of them and had planned to sell the weapons left by Dubey, the statement added.