Hours after a Special Investigation Team (SIT) was set up and a judicial inquiry panel appointed, the first arrests – two men, part of Union minister of state for home Ajay Mishra Teni’s convoy that allegedly ran over and killed four farmers – were made in Sunday’s Lakhimpur Kheri killings case.
The minister’s son, Ashish Mishra, has been summoned by the SIT. “Among the unnamed accused in the (farmers’) FIR, six have been identified so far. Three of them had died on the spot. Two others – Lav Kush from Banbirpur and Ashish Pandey from Taranagar – were arrested on Thursday,” a police statement said.
ADG (Lucknow zone) SN Sabat told TOI, “They will be produced in court.” Earlier in the day, IG (Lucknow) Laxmi Singh said, “They revealed the names of three persons involved in the incident. We cannot arrest them because they are dead. We have gathered important leads from the two persons we are questioning.” Click here for Lakhimpur Kheri live updates On Thursday morning, the Supreme Court had asked the UP government to file a report on the Lakhimpur Kheri violence by Friday.
A single-member judicial inquiry panel of retired high court judge Pradeep Kumar Srivastava was announced on Thursday.
It will submit a report in two months. The SIT initially announced, meanwhile, had six members – Kheri additional SP Arun Kumar Singh, who was at Banbirpur village that day, two deputy SPs and three inspector-rank officers.
In the evening, a new setup was announced – the SIT will have eight members, led by DIG Upendra Agarwal, with PAC commandant Sunil Kumar Singh as a senior member and ASP Singh as a member, along with the others.
