Kanpur (UP): Have Uttar Pradesh police while trying to eliminate notorious gangster Vikas Dubey, also killed a minor? Well such questions are floating up regarding the alleged ‘police encounter’ which resulted in the death of Prabhat Mishra alias Kartikey. He was killed in an alleged police encounter during a search operation for gangster Vikas Dubey and his aides. Kartikey’s family has claimed that he was a minor, but police have rejected the charge.
Evidence to prove Kartikey was a minor
Kartikey’s family has made his high school mark sheet (UP Board exam 2018) and Aadhaar card public to prove that he was a minor. Both the documents mentioned his name as Kartikey and his date of birth as May 27, 2004. If that is true then Kartikey is a minor irrespective of the fact that he was an aide of Dubey.
Police statement
According to police, Kartikey was being presented in a Faridabad court July 9 for transit remand. He was being brought to Kanpur and on the way, the police van broke down. Taking advantage of the situation, Kartikey snatched a pistol from a policeman and fired at the personnel escorting him, police said. He was killed in retaliatory firing by police in Panki, they said.
Shades of the same storyline emerged after Dubey’s alleged ‘encounter’. In his case the car overturned. Police claimed that he tried to escape snatching the weapon of a police personal. Dubey was shot and killed then.
Also read: Two aides of gangster Vikas Dubey shot dead by UP Police in separate encounters
Police have claimed that two nine mm pistols looted from the policemen with 44 live rounds were recovered from Kartikeys possession at the time of his arrest. He carried a bounty of Rs 50,000.
The police, in the FIR filed against Kartikey, said that his age was 20, an official on condition of anonymity said. “It does not matter even if a criminal is minor. He was part of the Vikas Dubey gang which was involved in the killing of eight policemen,” the official added.
Good student
Kartikey’s sister Himanshi told mediapersons that her brother was a brilliant student. She said he passed his high school examination from the UP board in 2018 with 79 per cent marks. She said Kartikey attained distinction in five out of six subjects with 78 marks in mathematics, 83 in English and 82 in Hindi.
Himanshi also said that Kartikey had cleared his intermediate UP board exams with first class marks June 29. It was just 10 days before he was killed.
No criminal history
Kartikey’s mother Sumanlata, also known as Geeta, said her son was ‘innocent’ and had no criminal history.
“My 16-year-old son, who could have had a bright future, lost his life so tragically,” she lamented.
Geeta narrated the events on the day of Kanpur ambush in which eight policemen were killed. She said she and her family members woke up after hearing the sound of gunshots.
“We waited till the firing stopped and then we walked out from the house and noticed the men fleeing from there,” Geeta said. She added that she persuaded her son Kartikey to leave the village and go somewhere else for a few days.
‘Cold-blooded killing’
Geeta said she came to know about Kartikey’s arrest through media reports. However, she did not know about the two men who the police said were with him in Faridabad. Kartikey’s mother also claimed that she has no relatives in Faridabad.
She said she later heard from mediapersons that police had killed her son in a pre-dawn encounter. “My son was killed in a cold-blooded manner by police,” she said.
IG Kanpur Range Mohit Agarwal told mediapersons that he had no information about Kartikey’s age or his academic achievements.
