The Congress general secretary asked the prime minister, in Lucknow on Tuesday to inaugurate a programme of the 'Azadi ka Amrut Mahotsav' celebrations, to visit Lakhimpur Kheri and give justice to the farmers.
Chaudhary also announced that if his party is voted into power in Uttar Pradesh, high court benches will be set up in western Uttar Pradesh, Bundelkhand and Purvanchal areas of the state.
Several Punjab Congress leaders, including Navjot Singh Sidhu, were on Thursday prevented from heading to Lakhimpur Kheri and were detained at a police station in Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh.
Largest in area among the 75 UP districts, Lakhimpur Kheri, known for sugarcane cultivation, with nine sugar mills in the district, is home to three or four lakh Sikhs.
Uttam Ghosh offers his take on the Lakhimpur Kheri tragedy.
Lakhimpur Kheri had been one of the key attack points of the Opposition parties such as the Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party and Congress against the BJP in the run up to the polls.
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.
The Congress on Sunday wrote to the Rashtrapati Bhavan seeking an appointment with President Ram Nath Kovind for a 7-member party delegation led by Rahul Gandhi to meet him and present a detailed memorandum of facts in connection with the Lakhimpur Kheri incident that claimed the lives of eight people earlier this month.
Annu Dhankar, who police referred to as 'Lady Don', was nabbed near the Indo-Nepal border in Lakhimpur Kheri in Uttar Pradesh.
Party sources in Delhi said Rahul Gandhi is keen to visit there on Wednesday, days after his sister and All India Congress Committee general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra was detained by the Uttar Pradesh Police while on her way to Lakhimpur Kheri, where eight people died and several injured Sunday in the bloodiest clash since the farmers' protest over the Centre's agri laws began last year.
The Lakhimpur violence, in which the son of senior BJP leader and Union minister of state Ajay Mishra Teni are accused of trampling four protesting farmers to death, has opened another front for the CM to deal with, after the mysterious death of Akhara Parishad president Mahant Narendra Giri last month and the death of a Kanpur-based trader in Gorakhpur recently.
Congress leader Lalan Kumar said she talked to the kin of farmers Lavpreet Singh, Nakshatra Singh and journalist Rajast Kahsyap, extending her condolences.
'The Governor is pleased to appoint Justice High Court, Allahabad (retd) Pradeep Kumar Srivastava as a single-member Commission of enquiry with Headquarters at Lakhimpur Kheri'
The Supreme Court on Monday said it may not be possible to direct the trial court to conduct day-to-day hearing in the 2021 Lakhimpur Kheri violence case, in which Union minister Ajay Kumar Mishra's son Ashish is among those facing prosecution, as it may affect other cases pending there.
Opposition parties on Monday lashed out at the Bharatiya Janata Party government in Uttar Pradesh for not allowing their leaders to visit Lakhimpur Kheri after eight people died in violence there during an anti farm law protest, alleging it was an attempt to cover up and demanding the sacking of Union Minister Ajay Mishra and the arrest of his son, who have been named in an FIR.
The Union Minister of State for Home Affairs did not speak to the media, neither while going into the polling booth at a school in Banwaripur nor when he came out after casting his vote.
Union Minister Ajay Mishra's son Ashish Mishra along with others accused in the case were also sent into judicial custody from police custody on Monday, the officials said.
The Uttar Pradesh authorities on Tuesday agreed to the demand for a second post-mortem of a farmer killed in the Lakhimpur Kheri incident after his family refused to cremate him, while mortal remains of the three others were consigned to flames at their native places during the day.
Two days on, regular activities were witnessed near the Lakhimpur railway station and other market places where vendors and shops were operating as usual.
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.
Parliament was adjourned for the day on Wednesday due to uproar by the Opposition members over Lakhimpur Kheri killings in Lok Sabha and the suspension of 12 members in Rajya Sabha.
"Those named in the FIR should go to jail. The government should take immediate action and the matter should be probed by a sitting judge of the high court. There are videos clips, statements of eyewitnesses, the statement (of minister) in which he is threatening. As he (accused Ashish Mishra) is the son of the MoS, action has note been taken yet," he said.
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.
Additional Advocate General for Uttar Pradesh Garima Prashad told a bench of Justice Surya Kant and Justice J K Maheshwari that the crime is grave.
Earlier in the day, the state government had denied permission to Rahul Gandhi for the visit, and an official spokesperson had said that no one would be allowed to visit the violence-hit district to vitiate its atmosphere.
It has assured that details of those giving information will not be revealed besides informers will be given due rewards.
"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.
Union Minister Ajay Mishra's son Ashish Mishra on Saturday appeared before the special investigation team (SIT) formed in connection with the Lakhimpur Kheri violence case.
A noted Durga Puja pandal in Kolkata this year will depict the agitation over the farm laws in the country, besides the killing of farmers in Lakhimpur Kheri in Uttar Pradesh.
There was heavy police deployment at most of the crossings in the district, around 150 km from Uttar Pradesh's capital city, Lucknow.
The delegation demands the immediate dismissal of Minister of State for Home Ajay Kumar Mishra over the Lakhimpur Kheri violence.
They alleged that while the two main political parties in the state -- the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Samajwadi Party -- have 'cheated' them, the other parties are 'ineffective'.
The farmers' body said that after these remarks of the court, Teni has "no excuse left for him" to continue as the minister.
A 25-year-old man was killed on a moving train in Telangana after he confronted four men who had stolen his money. The victim, Shashank Ramsingh Raj, was traveling from Secunderabad to Jhansi when the incident occurred. The thieves, who were later detained by the Government Railway Police (GRP), allegedly stole Rs 1,700 from Raj's pocket and also stole another passenger's mobile phone. When Raj confronted them, a brawl ensued, during which Raj was kicked and punched mercilessly. He later vomited blood and fell unconscious. Raj was pronounced dead upon arrival at Nagpur station. The case has been transferred to the GRP at Mancherial in Telangana.
"The killing of two BJP workers in Lakhimpur Kheri after a convoy of cars mowed down four farmers is a reaction to an action. I do not consider those involved in the killings as culprits," Tikait said in reply to a question asked during a press conference in New Delhi.
A bench headed by Chief justice N V Ramana asked the Uttar Pradesh government, represented by senior advocates Harish Salve and Garima Prasad, to record the statements of other relevant witnesses before judicial magistrates under section 164 of the CrPC.
The post-mortem reports of the two Dalit minor sisters who were found hanging from a tree in Uttar Pradesh's Lakhimpur Kheri district confirmed that they were raped and strangulated, the police said on Thursday.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge accused the BJP-RSS of carrying out a "well-planned conspiracy" against national heroes and said that Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel's ideology was contrary to the RSS' ideas. He defended the relationship between Sardar Patel and Jawaharlal Nehru, saying they were "two sides of the same coin". He also criticized the BJP-RSS for their alleged attempts to appropriate the legacy of Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel.
Union minister Ajay Mishra lost his cool at reporters in Lakhimpur Kheri on Wednesday, calling them "thieves" and lunging at one of them when they questioned him on the October 3 violence for which his son is among the accused.
'If the minister does not resign, then it will be the darkest incident of Indian democracy where power prevailed over the people.'
