Lakhimpur Kheri violence: 8 more accused granted interim bail

PTI

Lucknow, February 15

The Allahabad High Court has granted interim bail to eight more accused till March 20 in the 2021 Lakhimpur violence.

With this all the 13 accused in the case including Ashish Mishra, son of Union home minister Ajay Mishra alias Teni, are now on bail.

A Lucknow bench passed the order on Tuesday considering the Supreme Court’s January 25 order allowing bail to Ashish Mishra.

The bench of justice Rajesh Kumar Singh Chauhan has fixed March 20 as the next date of hearing in the case.

Those granted interim bail are Ankit Das, Nandan Singh Bisht, Latif alias Kale, Satyam Tripathi alias Satya Prakash Tripathi, Shekhar Bharti, Ashish Pandey, Rinku Rana and Sumit Jaiswal.

The bench imposed the same conditions on them as were mentioned in the order granting bail to Ashish Mishra.

Granting interim bail to Ashish Mishra for eight weeks, the apex court had directed him to leave Uttar Pradesh within one week of his release from jail.

The apex court had said Ashish shall not stay either in Uttar Pradesh or Delhi during the period of interim bail.

It had said any attempt made by Ashish Mishra, his family or supporters to influence or threaten the witnesses, directly or indirectly, shall entail cancellation of interim bail.

On October 3, 2021, eight people were killed in Lakhimpur Kheri district’s Tikunia where violence erupted when farmers were protesting against the then deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya’s visit to the area.

According to the Uttar Pradesh Police FIR in the case, four farmers were mowed down by an SUV in which Ashish Mishtra was allegedly seated. Following the incident, the driver of the SUV and two BJP workers were allegedly lynched by angry farmers. A journalist also died in the violence.

The top court had exercised its “suo-moto constitutional powers” and directed that four farmers - Guruwinder Singh, Kamaljeet Singh, Gurupreet Singh and Vichitra Singh - who were arrested in the lynching case be released on interim bail till further orders.

On December 6 last year, the trial court had framed charges against Ashish Mishra and 12 others for the alleged offences of murder, criminal conspiracy and other penal laws in the case of the death of the four protesting farmers, paving the way for the start of the trial.

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