A BJP worker who was seen escaping from a jeep moments after it mowed down farmers in Lakhimpur Kheri was among four persons arrested on Monday.
With this, the total number of persons accused in the murder of four farmers has gone up to 10.
On Monday, a SWAT team of the Lakhimpur Kheri Crime Branch and district police arrested Sumit Jaiswal, Sishu Pal, Nandan Singh Bisht and Satya Prakash Tripathi, alias Satyam.
Sumit Jaiswal was the complainant in the second FIR lodged in the case in connection with the lynching of three BJP workers, including a driver, following the mowing down of the farmers by the three cars in the convoy of Union Minister Ajay Mishra’s son Ashish Mishra, alias Monu, on October 3 in Tikonia. Ashish Mishra was subsequently arrested.
After the incident, a short clip showing Jaiswal getting out of the front left door of the jeep owned by the Mishras, which incidentally led the carnage, was widely shared on social media.
A licensed pistol and three cartridges were recovered from Satyam.
Interrogation on
The police said the arrested persons were being questioned by the Special Investigation Team probing the incident.
Ashish Mishra and 15-20 unidentified others were booked for murder, criminal conspiracy, rioting and death by negligence, following the first FIR lodged by the farmers. The FIR alleged that Ashish Mishra was sitting in the jeep which ran over the farmers, a charge he denied in media interviews.
In the second FIR lodged against unidentified persons for murder and other charges, Sumit Jaiswal alleged that the farmers pelted the vehicle with stones and attacked it with sticks.
Apart from the four farmers, a local scribe Raman Kashyap, two BJP workers Shubham Mishra and Shyam, and driver of the jeep Hari Om Mishra were killed.
Jaiswal had alleged that the protesting farmers attacked the vehicle in which he was sitting when they were going to receive the visiting Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya. Sumit’s car came to a halt after driver Hari Om was hit in the head, he alleged in the FIR.