Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) President, Swatantra Dev Singh in a statement has said that the Lakhimpur Kheri incident will not have any impact on the electoral prospect in any part of the state in the Assembly polls 2022.
“The Opposition has been viciously trying to turn a crisis into a political opportunity, but it will not succeed in denting the BJP’s image. The opposition can spoil the atmosphere of the state, but cannot damage the BJP. The state government has acted promptly and swiftly in dealing with the situation,” he said.
Recreation of crime scene
Lakhimpur Kheri violence took the lives of eight people among which four were farmers. A car was mowed over the protestors. Accused Ashish Mishra and Ankit Das were taken to the crime site to recreate the horrifying crime scene. They are using cops’ cars to brush up the scene.
Ashish Mishra has denied his presence at the crime scene. He claims at the time of the alleged killing he was at his village.
Visuals filmed by journalists at the scene showed a police jeep driving at high speed and crushing dummies (meant to represent the farmers who were run over) placed on the road.
Visuals filmed by journalists at the scene showed a police jeep driving at high speed and crushing dummies (meant to represent the farmers who were run over) placed on the road.
Another clip showed the crime scene secured with police tape; this, though, has raised questions about why the police did not secure the scene immediately after the incident and allowed everyone, including and the media, unfiltered access for at least 48 hours.
Ashish Mishra and Ashish Pandey Denied Bail
Ashish Mishra and Ashish who were arrested in case related to Lakhimpur Kheri violence. The magistrate court has denied their bail on Wednesday.
Chief Judicial Magistrate Chinta Ram rejected the bail applications of Ashish Misra and his alleged accomplice Ashish Pandey.
He was arrested on October 9 after nearly 11 hours of interrogation by SIT in connection with Lakhimpur violence which let to death of eight. Police said that he was not cooperating with them during the interrogation.
“After a long interrogation, we found that he (Ashish Mishra) is not cooperating, and does not want to tell many things in the investigation. That’s why we are arresting him. He will be produced before the court now,” DIG Upendra Agrawal, chairman of the supervision committee in the Lakhimpur Kheri case said in Saharanpur.
The Special Investigation Team (SIT) of UP Police, meanwhile, arrested Ankit Das and Lateef alias Kala
Ankit Das, a resident of Lucknow, is a close aide of Ashish Mishra and nephew of former Rajya Sabha MP Akhilesh Das.
Lateef alias Kala, a resident of Lakhimpur Kheri, is an accountant of Ankit Das, said police, adding that he and Ankit Das were in one of the three vehicles in the convoy that ran over the protesting farmers.
Both were later produced before a local court which sent them to three-day police custody, beginning Thursday.
Meanwhile, Ashish Misra and his alleged accomplice Ankit Das were cross-questioned for an hour by the UP Police Crime Branch today. Ankit Das, who surrendered before the police on Tuesday, accepted that he had escaped to Nepal on October 8.
However, Ankit Das denied that Ashish Misra was present in the Fortuner during the Lakhimpur Kheri incident. He also claimed that no firing took place during the incident.
Meanwhile, Ankit Das was sent to judicial custody till October 22. He was also remanded to three-day police custody till October 17.
In a video that went viral in the aftermath of the incident, a man with head injuries was heard telling a policeman that he was in the vehicle with four other people, including Ankit Das. The man in the video provided the registration number of the vehicle — described as a Toyota Fortuner — and claimed that it belonged to Ankit Das. “Since police have arrested Ankit Das and Lateef we would request the court to expunge surrender application,” said advocate Awadesh Kumar Singh.
Police have so far arrested six people in connection with the case — Ashish Misra, Lavkush, Ashish Pandey Shekhar Bharti, Ankit Das and Lateef alias Kala.
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