Uttar Pradesh Special Investigation Team (SIT), which has been probing the Lakhimpur Kheri violence from October 2020, on Monday, 3 January, filed a charge sheet against the 14 accused in the case. The charge sheet spans approximately 5,000 pages.
It has named the main accused, Ashish Mishra, and 13 others, including Virendra Kumar Shukla, whose name had surfaced during the investigation and has been booked for the disappearance of evidence.
Meanwhile, SP Yadav, senior prosecution officer said:
"According to the statement of the witnesses, main accused Ashish Mishra was present at the spot."
Eight people, including four farmers, were killed in Uttar Pradesh's Lakhimpur Kheri in October, after being run over by a convoy of cars. Ashish Misra, the son of Union Minister Ajay Teni Misra, was arrested on murder charges.
Meanwhile, confirming that the charge sheet has been filed, Advocate Mohammad Aman, who is representing the farmers in this case, said:
"However, minister Ajay Mishra Teni has not been named in the charge sheet."
This, as per Aman, is despite them specifically seeking Teni's name to be added to the charge sheet. He had been named in the complaint and his own car had been part of the convoy that mowed down protesting farmers in Lakhimpur.
Meanwhile, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi took to Twitter to say that the whole country was witness to the truth of the 5,000-page charge sheet, "yet the Modi government is trying to save the accused."
Earlier, in December, after Uttar Pradesh SIT moved an application in the court to invoke more criminal charges against the accused, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had tweeted:
"Modi ji, it's time to apologise again... But first remove the accused's father from the post of the minister. The truth is out!"
Ajay Mishra Teni is a BJP leader and the current Minister of State in Union Ministry of Home Affairs.
Initially, an SIT was constituted under DIG Upendra Agarwal, which began the investigation in both the FIRs connected to the incident. However, the SIT was reconstituted in November and more senior IPS officers were made part of it, under a retired judge. A senior cop in UP police has confirmed that DIG Upendra Agarwal is no more part of the SIT.
Seven people have been arrested in the second FIR registered against farmers in the death of three BJP functionaries. The SIT is yet to produce a charge sheet in this case.
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)