The Supreme Court on Friday said a plea filed by Union minister Ajay Mishra's son Ashish Mishra seeking bail in a case related to Lakhimpur Kheri violence should be placed before a bench comprising judges who had earlier dealt with the matter.
On October 3 last year, eight people were killed in Lakhimpur Kheri during violence that erupted when farmers were protesting against Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya's visit to the area.
Uttar Pradesh's deputy chief ministers on Thursday assured strict action against the culprits in the rape and murder of two Dalit girls in UP's Lakhimpur Kheri and urged the opposition to "console the family instead of politicising the matter".
The bench, also comprising justices Surya Kant and Hima Kohli, said that it will have to take the consent of the judge concerned and will consider names of even former apex court and high court judges for monitoring the probe in the sensational case and pronounce the same on Wednesday.
Police Lakhimpur Kheri on Tuesday arrested one more person in connection with the Lakhimpur Kheri violence and produced him in a court, which sent him to 14-day judicial custody.
The minister then visited the residence of Shah where he closeted for about half an hour.
The top court also asked the Uttar Pradesh government, which opposed the bail plea of Ashish Mishra terming the offence as 'grave', to file an affidavit with regard to the status of the second case filed over the killing of three occupants of the SUV, which allegedly mowed down the farmers.
The apex court has also sought details of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) and the judicial enquiry commission, reportedly set up by the state government.
The son of a farmer killed in the Lakhimpur Kheri incident allegedly involving Union minister Ajay Mishra Teni's son says he has declined the offer of the Samajwadi Party and the Congress to contest in the assembly polls and instead has asked them to field him in the 2024 Parliamentary election against the minister himself.
Security forces are on high alert along the India-Nepal border after intelligence reports indicated that over two dozen Pakistani and Bangladeshi nationals are attempting to infiltrate the area. The suspected infiltrators are believed to have reached Nepal amid a pause in India-Pakistan hostilities. The Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), tasked with guarding the border, has intensified patrolling and increased checkpoints to verify the identity of individuals crossing the border. The India-Nepal border spans approximately 1,750 kilometers, touching five Indian states, including Uttar Pradesh.
He is learnt to have discussed the formulation of a joint opposition strategy on the issue of Lakhimpur Kheri violence and the detention of prominent leaders including Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.
Despite being the MP from Lakhimpur, Teni is not actively involved in campaigning for the assembly polls as according to party insiders, the BJP does not want to risk its chances by using him.
With two of the four farmers killed in Lakhimpur Kheri violence turning out to be from Bahraich, local residents on Monday both mourned their deaths and agitated against their killings amid an eerie silence enveloping their villages.
A bench headed by Chief Justice NV Ramana is likely to pronounce its verdict at 10:30 am on Monday.
In a video apparently of a speech made to his supporters, Mishra dismissed allegations levelled against him.
'When in both post-mortems, doctors say that he was not shot, we had not option left but to cremated him'
"Why am I being stopped? I am not going to Lakhimpur where prohibitory orders are in place. I am only going to the Uttar Pradesh Congress office," he told police.
The National Commission for Scheduled Castes on Friday accused policemen of raping and killing the Lakhimpur teenager, even as the Uttar Pradesh government filed a status report before the Allahabad high court on the Crime Branch-Criminal Investigation Department probe into the incident. The commission, which had visited Lakhimpur Kheri recently to inquire into the death of the 14-year-old girl in Nighasan police station, spoke to the parents of the victim.
A statement issued on Monday by the umbrella body of farmers' unions protesting against the central farm laws, reiterated earlier 'ultimatum about October 11 being the deadline for the sacking and arrest of Ajay Mishra Teni'.
The opposition has renewed its demand for the minister's dismissal after a special investigation team told a local court that the Lakhimpur Kheri violence in which eight people, including four farmers, were killed was a "pre-planned conspiracy".
The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court had on July 26 rejected the bail plea of Mishra.
The Uttar Pradesh Police is mulling over slapping the stringent National Security Act (NSA) against the six people arrested for the rape and murder of two Dalit sisters in the state's Lakhimpur Kheri.
After two days of high drama, Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra were finally permitted by the Uttar Pradesh government to meet the families of the farmers, who died when a vehicle mowed them down in Lakhimpur-Kheri on Sunday, on Wednesday night.
A police outpost in-charge has also been suspended for not heeding to the family's complaint, in which they had alleged that the woman was sexually assaulted.
The mother of the two girls alleged that they were murdered and accused three youths from the neighbouring village in Nighasan police station limits of abducting and killing them.
NCP president Sharad Pawar on Friday reiterated that the Income Tax Department's raids on Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar's relatives and aides came after his comparison of the Lakhimpur Kheri violence in Uttar Pradesh to the Jallianwala Bagh massacre during the British rule.
In a statement, the umbrella body of farmer unions spearheading the farmers' agitation against the Centre's three agri laws, said 'protests will only be intensified until justice is secured' in the Lakhimpur Kheri case.
"If a film Kashmir Files is made, then at least, there should also be film 'Lakhimpur Files', where farmers were crushed under the wheels of a jeep," the SP president told journalists in Sitapur district on Wednesday when asked for his opinion on the Bollywood movie.
Dodging the police and media alike in Uttar Pradesh, Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi eventually surfaced suddenly in Nighasan town of Lakhimpur-Kheri district, about 170 km from Lucknow, to call on the family of the minor girl who was brutally done to death in the local police station premises exactly 19 days ago.
Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who arrived Bahraich on Thursday to meet the families of two farmers killed in the Lakhimpur Kheri violence, said by allowing Union minister Ajay Kumar Mishra to continue on the post, the Centre is giving the message that those in power can do anything.
Angry protesters allegedly forced the two vehicles to stop and set them on fire.
The charges against Ashish Mishra should be modified, cops investigating the case have written to a judge.
The Lakhimpur Kheri police had served a warrant on Zubair to appear in the court in connection with an FIR lodged against him for promoting enmity in 2021.
The districts where polling was held were Pilibhit, Lakhimpur Kheri, Sitapur, Hardoi, Unnao, Lucknow, Rae Bareli, Banda, and Fatehpur.
Bhartiya Kisan Union national president Naresh Tikait has asked BJP workers not to visit the rural areas of Uttar Pradesh, saying farmers are angry over the violence that broke out in Lakhimpur Kheri on Sunday.
The experts from Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL), Lucknow, in their report, have said that the car owned by Dilbag Singh, the Kheri district president of Bhartiya Kisan Union-Tikait and also a witness in the Lakhimpuri Kheri violence case last year, was stationary when it was hit by bullets.
Yadav and Singh alleged that BJP MP Mishra issued a 'brazen threat' against the protesting farmers only a few days ago.
Tikait said the minister's son was seen by many people at the spot on the fateful day.
The Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), an umbrella body of farmer organisations that spearheaded a protest at Delhi's borders in 2020-21 against three agriculture laws that have since been repealed, has said a resolution will be passed at the 'Kisan Mazdoor Mahapanchayat' to 'intensify the fight' against the Centre's policies.
Amid tight security, the three accused were taken to the site of the incident on the Tikonia-Banbirpur road, around 60 km from district headquarters Lakhimpur city, police said.
