'Vikas Dubey was indispensable to almost all political parties in UP'

'Election expenses run into several crores. And that is where people like Dubey come in handy to finance elections, indulge in booth capturing and to do the dirty job of politicians.'

"It (the action undertaken against the Vikas Dubey gang) will send a strong message for sure, but if somebody feels that this will be the end of goonda raj in UP, I think he will be living in a fool's paradise."

Former Uttar Pradesh director general of police, Dr Vikram Singh, speaks to Rediff.com's Prasanna D Zore in the concluding part of a two-part interview.

• Part 1: Vikas Dubey encounter: 'No gaping holes whatsoever

How did Vikas Dubey become such a dreaded criminal?

Vikas Dubey became a political necessity for anybody in power, because of the role crime, caste politics and the money required play in winning an election.

Election expenses run into several crores. And that is where people like Dubey come in handy to finance elections, indulge in booth capturing and to do the dirty job of politicians.

Therefore, Dubey became indispensable to almost all the political parties in Uttar Pradesh.

Do you have reason to believe that the UP police will now root out the criminal mafia in the state?

The process has already started.

After what has happened in the last seven days (after Dubey and his men killed eight policemen, the UP police gunned down some of his associates in encounters).

I can sense a shifting of gears. They are going full steam against the mafia and the underworld.

Will the state government also uproot the criminal-policemen-bureaucrat-politician nexus?

When I say the mafia, I refer to all those elements from different sections of our society who are complicit.

And that includes IPS officers, IAS officers, ministers, MLAs, MPs, MLCs, businessmen who fund and breathe life into the criminal underworld.

All these elements deserve to be put behind bars post haste.

If that is not done, then it (Vikas Dubey's death and those killed before him) will give the feeling of scraping a bottomless pit and have no real consequence.

If you just scratch the surface, the end result will be very negative, if not even worse.

We now need to uproot the invisible backbone, and the invisible backbone is the support system spawned by IAS officers, IPS officers, MPs, MLAs, MLCs and and ministers.

SEE: Why were media vehicles stopped by the UP police in the Sachendi area of Kanpur before the encounter?

What would you tell people who say Dubey was killed in a fake encounter and the current UP government has been doing it since it came to power in March 2017?

If there were any fake encounters, let there be inquiries into them.

I do not believe in any dispensation -- whether it be this government or any earlier governments or the governments to come.

I will call a fake encounter fake if I have strong reasons to believe that it was fake.

A large number of encounters could give an idea that something is wrong, but if there's something wrong, we have a vibrant judicial system, we have a vibrant society, NGOs going for public interest litigation immediately, politicians calling for CBI inquiries and that is what they are there for.

If somebody feels strongly that this is a fake encounter, then I would strongly recommend that they go for a PIL or demand a CBI inquiry; this has happened in the past in Punjab and UP also.

Is it incumbent upon the government to voluntarily order a judicial inquiry when actions of the law enforcers are under scrutiny?

It is not necessary.

What is incumbent is a magisterial inquiry, which is imperative after such encounters and the final report will be scrutinised by a judicial magistrate.

And the investigation of the encounter will be supervised by no other than the additional DG of police and the IG of Kanpur.

The senior-most officers in Kanpur will be supervising the investigation, and the final report will be scrutinised by a judicial magistrate.

So if there is anything suspicious or if there is any hanky-panky, it will come to light.

Will this sordid saga see the end of organised crime in Uttar Pradesh?

It (the action undertaken against the Vikas Dubey gang) will send a strong message for sure, but if somebody feels that this will be the end of goonda raj and mafia in UP, I think he will be living in a fool's paradise.

I would really like to see the law acting against the IAS officers, IPS officers, local politicians, MLAs, MPs and ministers and they being put behind the bars.

That will be the death knell of goonda raj. But till that happens, encounters like this one will only act as a symptomatic treatment with a very short term impact.

What needs now is the complete uprooting of the disease and that exists in some sections of the IAS, IPS, MLAs, MPs and ministers.

Feature Production: Rajesh Alva/Rediff.com