Bithoor cop gives description of attack

KANPUR: In-charge of Bithoor police station inspector Kaushalendra Pratap Singh, a part of 35-member team, who suffered two gunshot wounds in the fierce gun battle which left 8 policemen men dead, reached Bikru village on Tuesday to help investigators reconstruct the crime scene and the sequence of events that followed on the intervening night of July 2 and July 3.
He happens to be the first eye-witness and the victim of the attack who provided detailed description of how miscreants fired at the police from the rooftops.
Kaushalendra Pratap Singh informed SIT members that his police station had received a phone call from SO Chaubeypur, Vinay Tiwari, who asked us to accompany a raid team from his police station that day. “We left at around 12.30am on the night of July 2 to conduct a raid at gangster Vikas Dubey’s residence. We parked our vehicles near the site and started walking towards his house,” Singh said.
“A JCB was parked near his house in such a way that only one person could move to the other side. As soon as we crossed the JCB, a volley of bullets was sprayed on us,” Singh added.
Such was the attack, that our force, particularly personnel who were unarmed ran for cover , while others took position and retaliated.”
“I took position behind the wall with two other police personnel, who were unarmed. Later, our colleague Ajay Sengar told me that he was shot in the stomach. One more police personnel was shot in the hand. As the criminals resorted to firing from the rooftop, we couldn’t see them,” he added.
“We thereafter took both the injured policemen to a nearby police vehicle and informed our seniors, said Singh.
The team from three police stations--Bithoor, Bilhaur and Chaubeypur-- which went to conduct the raid consisted of almost 35 police personnel, he said.
“When we reached Bikru village, lights were there, and taking advantage of the criminals on the terrace easily spotted the locations of police personnel and took position accordingly. Soon, the village plunged into darkness owing to a power cut.
SHO Chaubeypur Vinay Tiwari was accompanying us only but as soon as the criminals opened indiscriminate firing, Tiwari was nowhere in the scene. Maybe, he took refuge and tried to position himself,” Singh further said.
To recall, the Special Task Force (STF) sleuths probing the Bikru village massacre, had on Wednesday taken the two arrested policemen--SHO Chaubeypur Vinay Tiwari and SI KK Sharma--to the crime spot to recreate the sequence of events.
Police carried out a similar exercise on Friday night (July 2) in the presence of both the arrested policemen, also the eyewitness of the case to see the conditions that would have been there at the time of the incident and how the slain or injured policemen could not be able to shield them.