Police on Wednesday shot dead an associate of gangster Vikas Dubey and arrested three but may have narrowly missed the chance to nab the kingpin himself whose men massacred eight policemen in a Kanpur village on July 3.

A man “looking like Vikas” had on Tuesday evening turned up at a guesthouse in Faridabad, Haryana, where two men had booked a room for three and said they were expecting a “friend” to join them, police sources said.

But the man left after the receptionist refused to let him check in for lack of ID proof. Uttar Pradesh police’s special task force (STF) later detained the two men in the room with the help of Haryana police, and are questioning them.

On Wednesday morning, the STF gunned down the newly married Amar Dubey, 30, in Hamirpur district, 250km from Lucknow, during an “encounter”. They arrested Shyamu Bajpai, 36, Jahan Yadav, 40, and Sanju Dubey, 35, from separate hideouts in Kanpur city.

Shyamu was shot and injured in the right leg when he fired at the police and tried to flee, officers said.

The STF also arrested Gyanendra Prakash alias Raj Khullar, estranged brother-in-law of Vikas who faces multiple murder and attempted murder cases, from Shahdol in Madhya Pradesh while looking for Vikas in the area. Khullar is not believed to have been involved in the July 3 massacre.

A police officer in Lucknow said two men who gave their names as Prabhat Mishra and Ankur Kumar had booked a room for three in the Faridabad guesthouse on Tuesday afternoon.

“They informed the reception that another friend would join them soon. Later, a person resembling Vikas arrived but the receptionist — not realising the situation — stuck to the rules and would not let him check in without identity proof. The man left after 15 to 20 minutes,” the officer said on the condition of anonymity.

“But something in the man’s behaviour had struck the receptionist as suspicious and he contacted the owner of the guesthouse. The owner checked the CCTV camera installed above the reception and called the local police to tell them about the man who looked like Vikas.”

He added: “The CCTV footage does show a man resembling Vikas.”

The Uttar Pradesh government on Wednesday increased the reward for information on Vikas from Rs 2.5 lakh to Rs 5 lakh.

In the early hours of July 3, a police raid to arrest the politically well-connected Vikas from his home at Bikru village in Kanpur Rural had gone horribly wrong, with the apparently tipped-off gang ambushing the police, killing eight and injuring seven.

Prashant Kumar, additional director-general of police, said that Amar, Shyamu, Sanju and Jahan had all fired on the police from the terrace of Vikas’s house.

Amar was killed in an “encounter” with the STF at village Majhgawan. He had got married nine days ago.

“A sub-inspector and a constable have suffered bullet injuries and are being treated,” Shlok Kumar, Hamirpur superintendent of police, said.

Khullar will be prosecuted in the many cases he faces in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, the police said.

Media reports had since July 3 been saying that Khullar had fled Kanpur after stealing crores of rupees from Vikas a few years ago and was hiding in Madhya Pradesh. He was arrested with the help of Madhya Pradesh police and would be brought to Uttar Pradesh.

Amar with a gun in an undated picture. PTI picture

‘Mole’ SSP

An Uttar Pradesh home department official said it had become clear that many policemen, including a senior superintendent of police, had been helping Vikas.

“Four policemen from Chaubepur police station, including station house officer Vinay Tiwari, have already been suspended for their dubious role in the July 3 incident,” the official said.

“Laxmi Singh, an inspector-general, is probing the mafia-police nexus in Vikas's case. The SSP is said to have been behind Vikas’s rise in the world of crime.”

Tiwari had been suspended last week on the charge of dereliction of duty for allegedly hiding and running away from the July 3 ambush.

SSP (Kanpur Urban) Dinesh Kumar said Tiwari had been detained and was being questioned. While the police bosses have acknowledged that someone from within the department had alerted Vikas in advance about the raid, the force has not officially said whom it suspects of being the mole.

Vikas trail

The police are probing multiple theories about Vikas’s escape trail.

According to one, the gangster had bicycled to Shivali area of Kanpur Rural after the massacre and then made it to the highway to Lucknow on a motorcycle borrowed from an unidentified friend before switching off his mobile.

Another version has him driving to Auraiya in an SUV, changing vehicles and travelling to Shahdol in Madhya Pradesh.

His wife Richa, who was in Lucknow during the massacre, left her home with her son on July 3 night and apparently made towards Chandauli in eastern Uttar Pradesh. Her mobile location has not been traced since then.