Kanpur: Gangster Vikas Dubey was killed in an encounter on Friday after a police vehicle carrying him from Ujjain to Kanpur met with an accident and he tried to escape from the spot in Bhauti area, a senior police official said.

“Dubey was injured in the encounter and he was declared dead in the hospital,” ADG Kanpur range, J N Singh said.

After the accident, Dubey snatched the pistol of an STF personnel and tried to flee but was surrounded by the police team and he was injured in an exchange of fire.

He was rushed to the hospital where he was declared dead.

The officer confirmed that Dubey “sustained injuries” but did not confirm to what extent, saying it would be revealed in the postmortem report.

Senior Superintendent of Police (Kanpur) Dinesh Kumar P said that the accident took place on Friday morning when it was raining heavily and the police vehicle overturned near Kanpur.

“Some policemen accompanying Dubey were also injured in the incident,” the SSP said.

He did not specify whether they were injured in the accident or during the encounter.

Eight policemen, including DSP Devendra Mishra, were ambushed in Bikru village in Chaubeypur area of Kanpur when they were going to arrest Dubey and fell to bullets fired from rooftops shortly after midnight on July 3.

Earlier, five members of Dubey gang were killed in separate encounters.

While on July 3, two of his associates, Prem Prakash Pandey and Atul Dubey, were killed by police in an encounter in Kanpur, on July 8 the police killed another aide, Amar Dubey, who carried a reward of Rs 50,000, in an encounter in Maudaha village in Hamirpur district.

On July 9, two more aides of gangster Vikas Dubey, wanted in connection with the Kanpur ambush, were killed in separate encounters in Kanpura and Etawah districts.

While Kartikeya alias Prabhat was killed in Kanpur when he tried to flee from police custody, another aide of Vikas Dubey, Praveen alias Bauwa Dubey, was shot dead in an encounter in Etawah.

Kartikeya, who was arrested from Faridabad on Wednesday, was being brought to Kanpur on transit remand when he snatched the pistol of a policeman and tried to flee.

Vikas Dubey, who was carrying a reward of Rs five lakh on information leading to his arrest, was arrested from Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh on Thursday.