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DailyOh! Was Vikas Dubey in the car that overturned?

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Vandana
VandanaJul 10, 2020 | 18:57

DailyOh! Was Vikas Dubey in the car that overturned?

Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has asked what about those protecting him. Well, with Vikas Dubey gone, they appear fully protected now.

From last Friday to this, no new movie released, but no one missed out on entertainment. In fact, no movie could have provided the kind of nail-biting thrill that Kanpur wala Vikas Dubey provided. The story shows the rot in the system, but since we can’t fix the rot, you can feel the thrill.

It began with Dubey killing eight cops in Uttar Pradesh’s Kanpur on July 3 and ended with a team of UP cops killing (in an encounter) Dubey a few kilometers away from Kanpur on July 10. Dubey, you know, was caught by the Ujjain police yesterday. Don’t be sure of what you know because he could well have surrendered amid all you do not know.

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The encounter site where Vikas Dubey was killed (Photo: ANI)

Dubey was being brought back to Kanpur by the Uttar Pradesh Police STF when a vehicle of the police convoy overturned.

Some say Dubey was not even present in the car that overturned. Minutes before the accident, Dubey was seen at a toll in a Tata Safari. The car that overturned was a Mahindra TUV 300.

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The car that overturned. (Photo: ANI)

But police say Dubey tried to escape after the car turned turtle and that’s when an exchange of fire happened. How did Dubey have a firearm? He reportedly snatched it from a cop. That says something about the alertness of UP cops who are saying nothing about how a car overturned on a flat road. Dubey didn’t look to have the kind of figure or agility it would take to step out of an overturned vehicle, snatch a firearm and start shooting. But then who are we to judge merely by looks?

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Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has asked what about those protecting him. Well, it looks like those protecting him are fully protected now. No Dubey means no beans to spill. Na rahega bean, na hogi spilling.

But some people are saying that Dubey fell victim to Yogi Adityanath’s ‘thoko niti’ (encounter policy). A similar niti once prevailed in Mumbai and those who gained specialisation in thoko niti came to be called encounter specialists.

Mumbai police killed hundreds of criminals in encounters in the 1990s. One such case happened on April 9, 1991. Ambadas Pote, who was Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) then, told an English daily that one morning while he was leaving the Vakola police station after completing his shift, he heard the cries of a girl. Pote said he called the duty officer to ask what happened. The officer walked into Pote’s room with a girl barely 10-11 years old. She was accompanied by her parents. The parents told Pote that two drunk goons barged into their hutment at 5 am and raped the minor.

Pote and his team visited the spot and enquired about the identity of the people. They soon identified the perpetrators as Babu Parmeshwar and Bali Nandivadekar. The duo was infamous as Babu-Bali in that area. The police were too moved by the crime because they had seen the girl cry in pain. They reportedly resolved to deliver justice within 24 hours.

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Babu-Bali were killed within 24 hours of the rape of a child. (Photo: Reuters)

And well within 24 hours, they got a tip-off about the suspects hiding in a corner of the same slum where they had committed the crime. At around 2 am, the police reached the spot where they were. Seeing the police approach, Babu-Bali tried to flee but had to stop a short distance away because of a nullah they couldn’t cross.

Cornered, the duo took out choppers and started attacking the police. A constable got seriously injured too. In retaliation, the police fired at Babu-Bali who were killed because of the gunshots. Only Bahubali could have escaped a cornering and shooting by police team, but Babu-Bali were no Bahubali. Nor was don Dubey. But Dubey hasn’t died alone. Encountered along with Dubey were all the secrets that only he was privy to like which businessmen did he grab land for? Who were the politicians who provided him patronage? There is speculation that it was to ensure these secrets remain secret that Dubey was encountered.

Sorry for the drift but did you know that encounter was at one point also called incounter? In Middle English encounter applied to ‘a meeting of adversaries’. Encounter, the Word Of The Day, is both a noun and a verb. It is dangerous in both avtaars. In Old French, the verb and noun were differently spelled - encontrer (verb) and encontre (noun). Both drew from Latin - in plus contra ‘against’. But the National Human Rights Commission and the Supreme Court have both pointed that what looks like an encounter could just be an extra-judicial killing. Was Dubey’s death an encounter or extra-judicial killing is a matter of investigation and we have no hopes of finding the truth, learning from our past experience of investigations into encounters.

But we would move on from the deadly criminal, now dead, to a deadly disease. China’s embassy in Kazakhstan has warned its citizens to take precautions against an outbreak of pneumonia that it says is more lethal than Covid-19. For once, the root is not China (unless you think of the embassy). But how deadly is the disease outbreak? Pneumonia killed 1,772 people in Kazakhstan in the first half of 2020. As many as 628 deaths happened in June alone. This is what the Chinese embassy says. It is advisable not to trust China on whatever it says but there is no doubt that pneumonia is lethal.

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Pneumonia killed 1,27,000 children in India died due to pneumonia, in 2018. (Photo: Reuters)

In 2018, one child under the age of five died of pneumonia every 39 seconds globally. The second-highest number of those deaths occurred in India. The first highest went to Nigeria. Just five countries were responsible for more than half of all the deaths.

Nigeria (1,62,000)

India (1,27,000)

Pakistan (58,000)

The Democratic Republic of Congo (40,000)

Ethiopia (32,000)

If there was a way to prove extra-judicial killings, our guess is India would be topping the charts there too. Blame the system and those who run it.

Also, take a pause to wish the man who scored enough runs to ensure many international victories for India in the game of cricket. Just a quick recap of his achievements tells us the original ‘Master Blaster’ from Mumbai represented India in 125 Tests, scoring 10,122 runs. He has scored 34 Test centuries and 45 fifties. In 108 One-Day Internationals that he played, Sunil Gavaskar scored 3,092 runs.

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The original 'Master Blaster'. (Photo: Reuters)

But you know, none of this would have been possible if he didn’t have a birth mark near his ear. Lucky charm? We aren’t suggesting superstition here but had it not been for his birth mark, Gavaskar would have landed with a fisherwoman. How?

Let us tell you that. A nurse accidentally placed Gavaskar next to a fisherwoman who too had delivered a baby in the hospital where the cricketer was born. Luckily, Gavaskar's uncle had noticed a birthmark near his ear and when he didn't see it on the other child, placed next to Gavaskar’s mother, he raised an alarm. The birthmark ensured he was reunited with his parents before it was too late. The incident makes us wonder how many such exchanges would actually be happening without an alert uncle to figure out who is who.

Talk of marks and you can’t help but talk about Teja and his mark.

Talking of Bollywood, the title track of Sushant Singh Rajput’s last film, Dil Bechara, is out.

If you want to know how Sushant Singh is winning hearts (one last time) through the track, read this.

But you may have noticed that modern-day title tracks barely leave a mark. From when they defined a film to now on their way out, you can read the tale of their bowing out here.

That will be all for today.

We will see you on Monday.

You take care.

Last updated: July 10, 2020 | 18:57
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