LUCKNOW: The Allahabad high court’s Lucknow bench on Thursday granted bail to Union minister Ajay Mishra Teni’s son, Ashish Mishra, who was arrested in October in connection with the mowing down of four farmers who were protesting in Uttar Pradesh’s Lakhimpur Kheri district against three controversial farm deregulation laws that were eventually scrapped late last year.
A convoy in which at least one vehicle belonged to Teni ran over farmers during a tense stand-off near Tikunia on October 3. The incident triggered protests, which left four more people dead, including a local journalist.
Teni maintained his son was not present at the site of the vehicle-ramming incident. He insisted that their driver was at the wheel, and the car lost control before slamming into the farmers. The state has said it has “clinching evidence” of Mishra’s presence at the scene.
Mishra was arrested after the Supreme Court on October 9 criticised the lenient treatment he seemed to be receiving from the police.
A single-judge bench of Justice Rajeev Singh granted bail to Ashish Mishra, who is the first of the 13 arrested accused to get it. It concluded the hearing on his bail application and reserved the order last month.
“The court has granted bail to Ashish Mishra,” said Vinod Kumar Shahi, additional advocate general.
{{/usCountry}}“The court has granted bail to Ashish Mishra,” said Vinod Kumar Shahi, additional advocate general.
{{/usCountry}}The court was yet to upload the bail order.
The Supreme Court in November appointed retired Punjab and Haryana high court judge Rakesh Kumar Jain to monitor the probe into the Lakhimpur Kheri violence to “ensure transparency, fairness and absolute impartiality in the outcome of the investigation”.
On November 8, the bench pulled up the Uttar Pradesh police, saying the investigation into the case appeared to be favouring the “main accused”.