A cattle smuggler died and two others sustained injuries when police shot at them after their pickup van carrying cattle crushed to death a police constable, who tried to stop them in the Chandwak police station area of this Uttar Pradesh district.

However, three other cattle smugglers managed to flee in the late Saturday night incident.

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The same lot of cattle smugglers had similarly crushed a woman Sub-Inspector, Pratima Singh, under the Jalalpur police station area on May 14. She is presently admitted to a hospital in Varanasi.

Police said that after the May 14 incident, police were trying to track these cattle smugglers. On Saturday night, Chandwak police station in-charge Inspector Satya Prakash Singh was checking the vehicles at Khujji roundabout when they traced this pickup van at around midnight.

When the police team asked the vehicle to stop, they crushed head constable Durgesh Kumar Singh and raced towards Varanasi.

Police and their special operations group (SOG) chased the pickup van, but when the team reached Tala Bela village of Cholapur police station area of Varanasi, they saw that the criminals had parked their vehicle there.

Criminals, six in number, then went towards Chandwak police station on two motorcycles. However, they could not escape further as police surrounded them, and later in the crossing-firing, one criminal was killed and two sustained injuries. Three members of the group managed to escape in the dark.

The deceased criminal has been identified as Salman, while Narendra and Tadia received bullet injuries.

In the incident, Head Constable Durgesh Kumar Singh succumbed to his injuries at the hospital in Varanasi. Police said an intensive search was underway to nab the other three criminals.