Mumbai: A day after Uttar Pradesh gangster Vikas Dubey was shot dead in an encounter, the Maharashtra ATS arrested two of his henchmen who were holed up in Thane. A team of Juhu ATS, headed by Daya Nayak, arrested the duo from Kolshet area. The accused duo is wanted in several crimes and was part of a sensational murder of a UP politician in 2001.

The ATS began the operation after the Juhu unit received specific information on the accused duo, later identified as Guddan Trivedi alias Arvind (46) and his driver Sonu Tiwari alias Sushilkumar (30).

The duo had been hiding in the Kolshet area in Thane and Trivedi was also allegedly part of the cop massacre killing eight officials, including a deputy superintendent of police, in Kanpur.

“The accused persons had fled after the murder of the policemen at Bikru village on July 3. His preliminary questioning hinted towards his involvement in the murder of the politician Santosh Mishra in 2001 and many other crimes,” said an ATS officer.

The officials said that the detailed questioning will be conducted by the UP police and all cooperation will be extended to them by the ATS. The officials are in the process of seeking clarity on the activities of the accused after they fled Kanpur.

The two accused will be handed over to the UP Special Task Force (STF) and a team is on their way to take custody of the duo. The arrests came a day after Dubey was killed in an encounter on Friday at Barra area in Kanpur hours after his arrest from outside a temple in Madhya Pradesh’s Ujjain.