Police take minister’s son to site of Lakhimpur violence

The Investigation Committee probing the Lakhimpur Kheri violence on Thursday took four accused, including Union minister of state for home Ajay Mishra’s son Ashish, arrested in the case to recreate the sequence of events leading to the violence in Tikunia village here.

Amid tight security, the four accused — Ashish Mishra, Ankit Das, his gunner Latif alias Kaale and his driver Shekhar Bharti — were taken to the site of the incident on the Tikunia-Banbirpur road, around 60 km from Lakhimpur city, said police.

Eight people, including four farmers, were killed in Lakhimpur Kheri’s Tikunia village on October 3. The farmers were allegedly knocked down by vehicles driven by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) workers travelling to welcome deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya to the area. Two BJP workers – Shubham Mishra and Shyam Sundar – and Mishra’s driver Hari Om Mishra were allegedly pulled out of the vehicles and lynched by angry protesters. A local journalist, Raman Kashyap, was also killed in the violence.

The investigators recreated the scene by placing mannequins as per the information collected by eyewitnesses before making three four-wheelers run on the narrow road of Banbirpur village, where the four farmers were allegedly mowed down, leading to the violence killing four others, said a police official privy to the investigation. Three vehicles were placed one after the other to repeat the sequence of events on the day of violence, said the official. The entire exercise was video recorded for thorough analysis, the official added.

The police official said the investigation committee later visited the minister’s village, Banbirpur, where the wrestling competition was to be inaugurated by Maurya during his visit to Kheri on the day of incident.

So far, police have arrested six accused, including Mishra’s son, his two accomplices, Luv Kush and Ashish Pandey, Das, Bharti and Kaale, in connection with the case. The minister’s son was arrested on October 9 after 12 hours of questioning, and a court sent him to police custody from October 12 to 15. Das, Latif and Bharti were in police custody from October 14 to 17.

On Thursday, relatives of deceased BJP worker, Shubham Mishra, reached the crime branch office and demanded arrest of his killers. Shubham’s uncles — Anoop Mishra and Sanoop Mishra — along with defence lawyer Awdhesh Singh reached the police lines to lodge their complaint.

Anoop Mishra told reporters on Thursday that no arrest had been made in connection with the killing of Shubham Mishra and others by mob.

Two FIRs were registered in Tikunia violence. The first FIR on October 4 was against Ashish Mishra and 15-20 others while the second FIR was registered the same day against unidentified miscreants in the murder of Shubham and Hari Om Mishra.

Meanwhile, BJP MLA from Lakhimpur, Yogesh Verma, demanded a thorough probe into the role of Kheri police in the violence alleging that police’s negligence led to the death of BJP worker Shyam Sundar and journalist Raman Kashyap.

Talking to reporters, Verma said: “The death of BJP workers at the hands of goons had caused resentment among the families of these workers and also among the masses.” Police did not react to Verma’s allegations till late in the evening.