Kanpur (UP) July 16 (PTI) In a fresh controversy, the family of Prabhat Mishra alias Kartikey, who was killed in an alleged police encounter during a search operation for gangster Vikas Dubey and his aides, has claimed that he was a minor, but police rejected the charge.

His family has made his high school mark sheet (UP Board exam 2018) and Aadhaar card public to prove that he was a minor. Both the documents mentioned his name as Kartikey and his date of birth as May 27, 2004.

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According to police, after being presented in a Faridabad court on July 9 for transit remand, Kartikey was being brought to Kanpur and on the way, the police van broke down.

Taking advantage of the situation, Kartikey snatched a pistol from a policeman and fired at the personnel escorting him, police said.

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He was killed in retaliatory firing by police in Panki, they said.

Police have claimed that two nine mm pistols looted from the policemen with 44 live rounds were recovered from Kartikey's possession at the time of his arrest. He carried a bounty of Rs 50,000.

The police, in the FIR filed against Kartikey, said that his age was 20, an official on the condition of anonymity said.

"It does not matter even if a criminal is minor. He was part of the Vikas Dubey gang which was involved in the killing of eight policemen," the official added.

On the other hand, Kartikey's sister Himanshi told mediapersons that her brother was a brilliant student and passed his high school examination from the UP board in 2018 with 79 per cent marks.

He attained distinction in five out of six subjects with 78 marks in mathematics, 83 in English and 82 in Hindi, she said.

Himanshi also said that Kartikey had cleared his intermediate UP board exams with first class marks on June 29, just 10 days before he was killed.

Kartikey's mother Sumanlata, also known as Geeta, said her son was "innocent" and had no criminal history.

"My 16-year-old son, who could have had a bright future, lost his life so tragically," she lamented.

Narrating the events on the day of Kanpur ambush in which eight policemen, including Deputy SP Devendra Kumar Mishra, were killed, Geeta said her family members woke up after hearing the sound of gunshots.

"We waited till the firing stopped and then we walked out from the house and noticed the men fleeing from there," Geeta said, adding that she persuaded her son Kartikey to leave the house and go somewhere else for a few days.

Geeta said she came to know about Kartikey's arrest through media reports, but she did not know the two men who the police said were with him in Faridabad.

Kartikey's mother also claimed that she has no relatives in Faridabad.

She said she later heard from mediapersons that police had killed her son in a pre-dawn encounter.

"My son was killed in a cold-blooded manner by police," she said.

IG Kanpur Range Mohit Agarwal told mediapersons that he had no information about Kartikey's age or his academic achievements.

On July 8, the Faridabad Police had arrested Kartikey and recovered pistols used in the Bikru shootout from him, the IG said .

Dubey and five alleged members of his gang have so far been gunned down in separate encounters in Kanpur, Hamirpur and Etawah in UP after eight police personnel were killed at Bikru village on July 3 by the gangster and his henchmen.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)