Lakhimpur Kheri violence: Police released pictures of miscreants, sought information

A Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice of India NV Ramana will hear the Lakhimpur Kheri case on Wednesday.

Lucknow: The Uttar Pradesh Police has released photographs of some miscreants involved in the Lakhimpur Kheri violence on October 3. The police have appealed to the general public to provide information about the persons and assured them that the identities of the informers would be kept secret.

The development comes a day ahead of the hearing of the Lakhimpur Kheri case in the Supreme Court on Wednesday. The matter will be heard by a bench of Chief Justice of India NV Ramana and Justices Surya Kant and Hima Kohli. The top court had on October 8 expressed dissatisfaction over the October 3 incident, which resulted in the death of eight, including farmers.

The court had said that it was not satisfied with the action taken by the state government in the Lakhimpur Kheri violence.

Referring to the incident as “brutal murder”, the top court had said that the law should take action against all the accused in the case. Eight people, including four farmers and a journalist, were killed in Uttar Pradesh’s Lakhimpur Kheri after an SUV of Union Minister Ajay Kumar Mishra collided with a group of protesters.

While the state government has constituted a one-man commission headed by retired Allahabad High Court judge Pradeep Kumar Srivastava to probe the matter, the police on Monday arrested four accused in connection with the case. Ajay Kumar Mishra’s son Ashish Mishra along with 20 accused have also been taken into custody in the case.

Earlier in the day, the Special Investigation Team (SIT) had also summoned 50 farmers for questioning in the case. 15 farmers had appeared before the SIT on Monday. “We are probing both the FIRs and farmers have been summoned in connection with the second FIR,” the news agency quoted an SIT official as saying.