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Retd Allahabad HC judge visits Lakhimpur violence site for probe
He examined the crime scene and received inputs from police officials over the sequence of events established on the basis of statements of witnesses and crime scene recreation by forensic experts, say cops
Retired Allahabad high court judge, Justice Pradeep Kumar Srivastava, who is heading a single-member inquiry commission probing into the Lakhimpur Kheri violence, visited the violence site near Banbirpur village under Tikunia police station limits on Wednesday, said police officials.
He examined the crime scene and received inputs from police officials over the entire sequence of events that has been established on the basis of statements of witnesses and crime scene recreation by forensic experts, they said. However, forensic experts accompanying Justice Srivastava carried out further investigations on his direction, they added.
A police official said Justice Srivastava spent several hours at the site to understand the events that took place when a car of union minister Ajay Kumar Mishra’s son, Ashish Mishra, allegedly mowed down four farmers and four others were killed during the violence that erupted over the death of farmers. He said media personnel and outsiders were not allowed anywhere near and the crime scene was barricaded.
The judge had reached Lakhimpur Kheri on Tuesday evening.
The single-member judicial commission of inquiry under Justice Pradeep Kumar Srivastava had been constituted by the UP government as part of the agreement between the agitating farmers and the authorities to ensure a thorough probe into the Tikunia violence, which left eight people, including four farmers, a local journalist, two BJP workers and a driver, dead.
In a notification dated October 6, the state government said the judicial commission would be headquartered in Lakhimpur Kheri. It was stated that the commission shall complete the inquiry within a period of two months from the date of the issue of this notification.
In the incident, four farmers were allegedly knocked down by vehicles driven by BJP workers. The remaining deceased -- two BJP workers, a journalist and a driver -- were allegedly pulled out of the vehicles and lynched by angry protesters.
Two FIRs were lodged at the Tikunia police station in this connection. The first FIR (number 219) was lodged from the farmers’ side in which MoS home Ajay Kumar Mishra’s son Ashish Mishra and 15-20 others were accused of mowing down four farmers. The investigators identified and arrested 12 others apart from the main accused Ashish Mishra.
These included a BJP ward member Sumit Jaiswal, Ankit Das, Shekhar Bharti, Latif alias Kaale, Shishupal, Nandan Singh Bisht, Satya Prakash Tripathi alias Satyam, Mohit Trivedi, Ashish Pandey, Lavkush Rana, Rinku Rana and Dharmendra. At present, all the 13 accused are in judicial custody.
The second FIR (number 220) was lodged by Sumit Jaiswal, in which he alleged that unidentified miscreants killed four persons. The investigators arrested four persons, including Gurvinder Singh, Vichitra Singh, Avtar Singh and Ranjit Singh, who are also in judicial custody.
Apart from the single-member judicial commission, the government had formed a nine-member special investigating committee headed by DIG Upendra Agrawal to probe both the FIRs.
