After eight Uttar Pradesh Police personnel were shot dead by notorious local criminal Vikas Dubey and his gang in Kanpur on Friday, the state police is now probing the local cops to check if  information about the raid was leaked to the criminal by some ‘insider’.

Daya Shankar Agnihotri (42), a member of Vikas Dubey gang, was arrested by police after a brief encounter. He was intercepted by the police around 4.40 am in Kalyanpur area.

“He tried to escape and the police team shot at his leg. He has been arrested,” the SSP Kanpur Dinesh Kumar said.

Meanwhile, the station in-charge of Chaubepur, Vinay Tiwari, has been suspended and the police are questioning him. The entire staff of the Chaubepur police station is under scanner. Strict action will be taken if someone is found guilty of spying for the mafia, Mohit Agarwal, the chief of Kanpur police was quoted by NDTV as saying.

“He (Vikas Dubey) received a phone call from police station before the police came to arrest him. Following this, he called around 25-30 people. He fired bullets on police personnel. I was locked inside the house at the time of encounter therefore saw nothing,” Daya Shankar Agnihotri was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

According to reports,  electricity supply of Vikru village under Chaubeypur police circle was cut in order to help Dubey and gang run away in the dark. It is alleged that a phone call from Chaubeypur police station was made to the electricity department to snap the supplies “as a power line was damaged there,” reported ANI.

The policemen were sprayed with bullets in Vikru village under Chaubeypur police circle in Kanpur in the wee hours of Friday when they went to arrest  Vikas Dubey and his gang.

The police team comprising about 50 police personnel had gone to the village around 3.30 a.m. after receiving a tip-off about the presence of Vikas Dubey there, after an attempt to murder case was filed against him.

Dubey and his men had stationed a JCB to block their way and as soon as the police team reached there, they started firing from the terrace of a house. The miscreants, numbering about a dozen, also pelted stones at the police men.

The deceased included a deputy superintendent, circle officer Bilhaur, Devendra Kumar, who was leading the team, three sub-inspectors and four constables, while the injured policemen were admitted to the hospital.

Vikas Dubey has  over 60 cases against him, including murder charges. His criminal journey began in 1990 with the case of murder. After this, a number of cases including murder, kidnapping, extortion and rioting were registered against the gangster.

A sensational murder case against Dubey is of Santosh Shukla, a Kanpur BJP leader in 2001.

It was reported that Vikas Dubey had chased Santosh Shukla and shot him inside a police station. At the time of incidence, the BJP government was in power in the state and the current Defence Minister Rajnath Singh was the Chief Minister of the state.

However, Dubey had surrendered to the police in 2002 and was acquitted of the charges.

Vikas Dubey is reportedly having political links and was also a member of a political party in the past. Board has also been seen in the village at a construction site where Vikas Dubey is mentioned as a ‘Zila Panchayat member’.

He allegedly keeps an armed group of henchmen with him.

Vikas Dubey is also named in another high-profile case of Siddheshwar Pandey, the principal of Tarachand Inter College in 2000.

Authorities had on Saturday demolished the well-fortified house of the gangster.