A new version of an earlier video clip that showed an SUV purportedly ramming into protesting farmers from behind in Lakhimpur Kheri on Sunday, 3 October, has emerged.
The cleaner and longer video shows that the SUV, travelling at high speed, rammed into a group of farmers walking down a road slowly and peacefully.
The video shows the farmers falling to the ground as one SUV hits them, while another with its sirens blaring is being driven behind.
Video Contradicts Versions by Misra, Jaiswal
The video that emerged on Wednesday contradicts the statement given by Ashish Misra, son of Union Minister of State for Home Ajay Teni Misra, who has been booked for murder in the case.
The politician's son had told NDTV that the convoy had been attacked, and that a vehicle that overturned during the tumult could have injured the farmers.
"It's not correct that the Fortuner mowed down farmers. The truth is that our workers went to receive the Honourable Deputy Chief Minister. The Thar SUV that was in the front was attacked with sticks and stones. The driver Hari Om was injured or may have died in that attack. The car lost its balance and overturned. That's how these two people who are being called farmers must have been injured," he had said in the interview.
The latest video also contradicts statements by local BJP leader, Sumit Jaiswal, who had lodged his complaint at the Tikunia police station in Uttar Pradesh, claiming that the protesting farmers had attacked a vehicle, that was carrying him and others, with sticks and stones.
Jaiswal, in his complaint, has alleged that the convoy of cars had been attacked by sticks and swords, and that the protesting farmers had dragged his friend Shubham Mishra and the driver Hariom out of the car.
The BJP leader said that he had managed to flee from the car amid the violence, and had later learnt from social media that Hariom and Shubham Mishra had been killed in the attack.
"Yes, I am that man in the video. We were under attack from farmers...I somehow got away alive," Jaiswal was quoted as saying by NDTV.
"We were at the programme venue. There was an atmosphere of fear. They were armed with sticks and rocks and they kept attacking us, abusing us," he added.
(With inputs from NDTV.)
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