Lakhimpur Kheri probe team recovers weapons from accused’s house

So far, the police have arrested six accused, including the Union minister’s son in connection with the Lakhimpur Kheri case

LUCKNOW The Investigation Committee probing the Lakhimpur Kheri violence on Friday took two of the six accused to the capital from Lakhimpur to search for the weapons allegedly used in the incident, in which eight people, including four farmers were killed on October 3..

Eight people died in the October 3 violence in Lakhimpur Kheri and of them, four were farmers, allegedly knocked down by a vehicle carrying BJP workers. (Naeem Ansari)

On Friday, the team took the friend of junior home minister’s son Ashish Mishra, Ankit Das and his gunner Latif alias Kaale back to Lucknow in search of the weapons.

“The committee recovered a pistol and a repeater gun from the Lucknow residence of Ankit Das,” said a senior police officials on condition of anonymity. The pistol is registered in name of Ankit Das while the repeater gun is registered in the name of gunner, police officials added. Officials also visited a hotel where Ankit stayed for two days after the incident. They collected CCTV recording of the hotel.

The protesting farmers had claimed that shots were fired by the minister’s son Ashish Mishra, the main accused, at the site of incident. Deputy Inspector General Upendra Agarwal had earlier said that two misfired cartridges were recovered from the incident site.But the investigators were yet to recover the firearms from which the bullets were fired.

Eight people died in the October 3 violence and of them, four were farmers, allegedly knocked down by a vehicle carrying Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) workers. Infuriated farmers then allegedly lynched some people in the vehicles. The other dead included two BJP workers and their driver. In the incident, a journalist was also killed.

So far, the police have arrested six accused, including the Union minister’s son, his two accomplices, Luv Kush and Ashish Pandey, Das, his gunner and his driver Shekhar Bharti, in connection with the case.

Meanwhile, the three-day police custody remand of Ashish Mishra ended on Friday. Mishra was lodged in Lakhimpur jail on Thursday night, where he will remain in judicial custody. The police will appeal again in the court for the custody remand of Ashish on Monday, said senior prosecution officer, SP Yadav

Avdhesh Kumar Singh, the counsel of Ashish Mishra, reiterated that his client was not present on the spot when the incident occurred. “We will apply for his bail before the court on Monday, basing our argument on the fact that my client Ashish Mishra was not present on the spot when the incident occurred,” said Singh.

On Thursday, the four accused, including Ashish Mishra, Das, Latif and Bharti — were taken to the site of the incident to recreate the crime scene. The data of the crime scene recreation will be examined by forensic experts, said the officials on Thursday.