Lakhimpur Kheri: The violence in Lakhimpur Kheri district of Uttar Pradesh was a “well-planned conspiracy” by Ashish Mishra, son of Union minister Ajay Mishra, the First Information Report filed by the police stated, NDTV reported.
The FIR was lodged on October 4, based on a complaint by Jagjeet Singh, a resident of Nanpara village in Uttar Pradesh’s Bahraich district. Eight people were killed in the violence that folded on October 3, during a protest against the centre’s new agricultural laws. Four of those who died were farmers.
Ashish Mishra had driven into the gathering of protesting farmers, gun blazing, in which one farmer died. “The act (mowing down the farmers) was a well-planned conspiracy by the minister and his son,” read the FIR, which was released on October 5 by the Uttar Pradesh police.
The Union minister’s son has been booked under various charges, including murder and causing death by negligence. The police have attributed the delay because they are preoccupied with multiple issues including “negotiations with farmers, postmortems and cremations”.
The FIR said the farmers were peacefully protesting against the three agricultural laws when Mishra went towards them along with 15-20 armed men in three vehicles, said the NDTV report.
“Ashish Mishra who was in his Mahindra Thar, sitting on the left side continued to fire [his weapon] as the vehicle moved ahead crushing the people in the crowd,” the FIR said. “Because of the firing, Gurvinder Singh, a farmer, died on the spot. Vehicles moved at high speed crushing farmers standing on both sides of the road.”
The minister’s son, the FIR added, then got off and fled into the sugarcane field, continuing to fire from his gun.
The union minister, however, continues to maintain that allegations against his son are false. “Our son was at another venue,” he told NDTV. “From 11 am till the evening, he was organising another event. My son was present there, there were thousands there. There are photos and videos. The minister, though, has admitted that the vehicle belongs to him”.