A violent-clash between farmers and BJP workers in Lakhimpur Kheri of Uttar Pradesh claimed eight lives of which four were claimed to be farmers and the rest, BJP workers.

The incident took place ahead of UP Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya’s visit. Protests were held all over Uttar Pradesh. Images of cars and other vehicles being set ablaze by an angry mob dotted the internet. While many opposition party members tried to reach the spot, they were blocked and detained. How did the events roll out at Lakhimpur Kheri on October 3? Why did clashes break out between farmers and BJP workers in the first place?

Call For Protest

Farmer unions such as the Samyukta Kisan Yojana had reportedly given a call for protest against the visit of UP Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya and MoS (Home) Ajay Mishra Teni. They were on a visit to inaugurate a few government schemes in Banbirpur village.

Car Hits Protesters

When the convoy of SUVs carrying the Deputy CM and the union minister was crossing Tikonia, one of the vehicles mowed down protestors – as was alleged by farmers. As per reports of local bystanders and farmers, the SUVs arrived at high speed and hit the farmers, resulting in death and injury. The cars later turned turtle.

SUVs Set Ablaze

Following the incident, farmers allegedly set fire to two SUVs. Eight lives were lost in the incident. As per reports, four of the deceased were farmers while the other four were persons in the car. According to reports, farmers have alleged that the union minister’s son Ashish Mishra was driving the car that mowed down the protesting farmers. Ajay Mishra, however, has since denied the charges and said that his son was not present in the convoy but was instead at the inauguration event. As news of the incident broke on social media and videos of injured farmers went viral, Opposition leaders took up the issue.

WHO DIED?

The farmers’ bodies claimed that four farmers identified as Nakshatra Singh (55), Daljeet Singh (35), Lavepreet Singh (20) and Gurvendra Singh (18) died as vehicles mowed the protesters down on the Tikunia-Banbirpur road.

Four other deaths were reported from the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) camp. They were travelling in a car and were allegedly dragged out of the car and lynched by the protesters.

NINTH DEATH

While the local administration, the farmers’ body and the BJP leaders have confirmed eight deaths in the Lakhimpur Kheri violence, reports have said a journalist identified as Ratan Kashyap died in the incident.

Kashyap, working with a TV news channel, was covering the incident of violence. He was reportedly hit by a speeding vehicle.

Heavy Security Deployment

Monday, October 4,  saw a heavy deployment of security in Lakhimpur Kheri where internet services were snapped following Sunday’s incident. Normal life appeared affected, not only in Tikonia, but the entire Lakhimpur Kheri district. Prohibitory orders under Section 144 of CRPC has been imposed. Personnel from the Sahastra Seema Bal (SSB) and UP State Police were deployed in large numbers in Tinsukia to maintain normalcy.

Politicians Detained

Several political leaders were stopped from visiting Lakhimpur Kheri to meet the families of the deceased farmers.

Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra headed toward Lakhimpur Kheri early on Monday but was detained by UP police en route. She was later detained at a guest house in Sitapur. Videos of her asking the police for a warrant or documentation went viral. In Lucknow, former UP CM and Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav was put under house arrest and detained by UP police when he tried to stage a sit-in outside his house. Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel was detained at Lucknow airport.

State-wide Protests

Protests and demonstrations were reported from various districts, including Banda, Chitrakoot, Mahoba, Hamirpur, Fatehpur, Jalaun and Lalitpur in the Bundelkhand region, besides Shahjahanpur, Pilibhit and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s home turf Gorakhpur.

Ex gratia

The UP government has announced Rs 45 lakh compensation for families of farmers killed in Sunday’s violence.

What triggered Oct 3 clashes?

According to reports, the incident on Sunday was not isolated but the culmination of a series of incidents. Tension brewed last week after a video of Ajay Mishra Teni (who had visited Lakhimpur Kheri district earlier) warning protesters opposing the centre’s three farm laws to mend their ways went viral. He also allegedly threatened the protesters that he will make them mend their ways if they didn’t stop. The UP government on Monday grappled with the aftermath of violence. A case has been lodged against Union minister Ajay Mishra’s son.

Ashish Mishra denied bail, two more arrested

A local court in Lakhimpur Kheri on Wednesday, Oct 13,  denied bail to Ashish Mishra, the main accused in the murder of four farmers and a journalist who were allegedly run over by a convoy of SUVs, including a Thar jeep owned by his father and Union minister Ajay Mishra.

The Special Investigation Team (SIT) of UP Police, meanwhile, arrested two more persons — 38-year-old Ankit Das and 37-year-old Lateef alias Kala — in connection with the incident, taking the total number of arrests in the case to six. Ankit Das, a resident of Lucknow, is a close aide of Ashish Mishra and nephew of former Rajya Sabha MP Akhilesh Das.

Lateef alias Kala, a resident of Lakhimpur Kheri, is an accountant of Ankit Das, said police, adding that he and Ankit Das were in one of the three vehicles in the convoy that ran over the protesting farmers.

Both were later produced before a local court which sent them to three-day police custody, beginning Thursday, 14.

In a video that went viral in the aftermath of the incident, a man with head injuries was heard telling a policeman that he was in the vehicle with four other people, including Ankit Das. The man in the video provided the registration number of the vehicle — described as a Toyota Fortuner — and claimed that it belonged to Ankit Das. “Since police have arrested Ankit Das and Lateef we would request the court to expunge surrender application,” said advocate Awadesh Kumar Singh.

What are the charges

against Ashish Misra?

In its FIR on the Lakhimpur Kheri incident, Uttar Pradesh Police has stated that Ashish Misra alias Monu was sitting in the car that mowed down protesting farmers on Sunday. However, Ashish Misra denied being present inside the car that mowed down protesting farmers in Lakhimpur Kheri last week.

As per the FIR, four of the victims were mowed down by a vehicle allegedly being driven by Ashish Mishra.

The FIR has been filed under Indian Penal Code (IPC) Sections 302 for murder, 304-A for causing death due to reckless driving, 120-B for criminal conspiracy, 147 for rioting, 279 for rash driving, 338 for causing grievous injuries to any person by doing any act so rashly or negligently as to endanger human life, along with other sections at the Tikunia police station.

The FIR states that the whole incident was ‘premeditated’ and that the entire ‘conspiracy was hatched by the BJP minister and his son’, who committed the act in a display of ‘hooliganism’. The FIR also mentions 15-20 unnamed persons as accused.

The FIR further read, “The incident took place at around 3 pm when Mishra, along with 15-20 others, who were armed with weapons, came to the protest site in Banbirpur in 3 speeding four-wheelers. Monu Mishra, who was sitting on the left side of his Mahindra Thar vehicle, opened gunfire, mowed down the crowd and went ahead. The firing led to the death of farmer Gurvinder Singh, son of Sukhwinder, a resident of Matronia in Nanpara.”

The FIR also alleges that the vehicle of the BJP MP’s son overturned on the side of the road and this caused injuries to several other people present on the side of the road and thereafter Mishra opened fire, escaped from his car, and hid in the nearby sugarcane field.

The FIR also states that a video has already gone viral on social media, in which the BJP minister could be allegedly seen warning protesters who were opposing the Centre’s three farm laws. In the video, he allegedly asked the protesters to mend their ways.

On October 3, several farmers were holding protests against the visit of Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya to Lakhimpur Kheri, when four protesting farmers were killed after they were mowed down by an SUV.

Allegedly, the SUV was part of the convoy of Union minister Ajay Mishra Teni.

According to legal experts, the FIR has been lodged under the stringent sections of the Indian Penal Code, demanding immediate arrest of the accused. The sections levelled against Ashish Mishra are non-bailable.

What lead to Ashish

Mishra’s arrest

Ashish Mishra’s arrest finally came on Oct 9 night, a day after the Supreme Court expressed dissatisfaction over the state government’s action in the case. The police reportedly questioned him for 11 hours to try and cornered him on the following four points:

–              His claim that he was at the Banbirpur village wrestling event at the time of the incident

–              Another contrasting claim by some of his supporters that he was at a sugar mill in the vicinity

–              Why was his vehicle at the crime scene when police had diverted the movement of BJP leaders to another route

–              Whether he or anyone in his team/security detail own a point .315 bore gun since empty cartridges were recovered from his vehicle

Ashish was arrested after his replies on the above four counts failed to hold up to basic scrutiny or provide him a watertight alibi in the case.

DIG Upendra Agarwal, who is heading the special investigation team (SIT) of Uttar Pradesh Police probing the case, told reporters that Ashish Mishra was not cooperating during the interrogation.

“We are taking him in custody on grounds of non-cooperation and evasive replies. He will be produced in court and sustained custodial interrogation will follow,” he said.

With reference to the first point, while Ashish had been maintaining that he was at a wrestling event around four to five kilometres from the scene of the violence, multiple witnesses and some video evidence placed him at the scene of the crime while statements of police personnel posted at the said wrestling event showed that the minister’s son was missing between 2 and 4 pm.

Both Ashish and his father had claimed otherwise. “In the programme, there were thousands of people including police and administration. My son was there since 11 am and continued to stay there till the conclusion of the programme. So there is no chance of my son being present at the spot,” MoS Ajay Mishra was quoted as saying by ANI.

On the second point, an NDTV report cited sources to claim that when Ashish was shown evidence that his phone’s mobile tower location at the time of crime indicated that he was in the vicinity of the crime scene, he changed his claims about his whereabouts. He told the police that he was in his rice mill at the time which is closer to the crime scene under the same tower, but contrasting claims regarding his alibi did little to help his case.

Mishra also could not provide a satisfactory answer to justify why his vehicle was at the crime scene when the police had clearly re-routed the BJP leaders’ convoy.

A farmer, who was undergoing treatment after the injuries he sustained after coming under the BJP leader’s vehicle, told News18, “We were told at 3 pm that their route has changed. We started going back peacefully. Suddenly, speeding cars hit us from behind. The car was at over 100 km/hour speed. They ran us over on purpose. Ajay Mishra’s son and his men were in the car. Then I lost consciousness.”

Though the Union Minister’s son admitted that the SUV that ran over farmers belongs to him, he maintained that he was not in it. Aged around 35, Ashish Mishra looks after the political activities of his father in his Kheri Parliamentary constituency.

While his son was facing questioning by the SIT, Ajay Mishra was in his MP’s office in Lakhimpur city with lawyers and later came out to calm his supporters, who had assembled in large number outside the house and were shouting slogans in favour of him and his son, The minister told them that Ashish was innocent and would come out clean. After two men were arrested  in the case, police had put up a notice outside Ashish’s house asking him to appear before it.