Lakhimpur Kheri: SIT Call It Deliberate Murder: The Call for Dismissal of Ajay Mishra from Union Home Ministry Rises Again!

[Sukla Sen]

<<After two months of investigation into the Lakhimpur Kheri incident, the UP Police’s Special Investigation Team (SIT) has submitted to a court that the killing of four farmers and a journalist, in which Union Minister of State Ajay Mishra’s son Ashish Mishra and 12 others are accused, was a “planned conspiracy”.

In an application to a local court on Monday, the SIT denied that the incident occurred because of negligence or callousness and said the act was deliberate, with an intention to kill. It also sought to invoke charges including attempt to murder and others against the accused, who are currently in Lakhimpur Kheri jail.

The accused were presented in court on Tuesday.

...

Reacting to the development, Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to dismiss MoS Mishra, and initiate a probe into his role in the violence.

On October 3, a convoy of three SUVs, including one owned by Ajay Mishra, had run over a group of farmers in Lakhimpur Kheri, killing four of them. The family of a journalist had said he too died in the incident. In the violence that followed, two BJP leaders and a driver of the SUV owned by Mishra were lynched by the angry mob.>>

(Excerpted from: <https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/lucknow/lakhimpur-violence-sit-pre-planned-conspiracy-murder-charge-7672383/>.)