To further grill Ashish Mishra, a prime accused in the Kheri incident and son of Union Minister of State for Home Ajay Mishra Teni, to extract the truth from him, a court in Lakhimpur Kheri on Monday remanded him to three days’ police custody.
The Special Investigation Team (SIT) through its lawyer had sought a 14-day police custody remand of Ashish Mishra on the grounds that it had to grill him further to collect evidence.
Special Magistrate Chinta Ram, however, sent Ashish to three-day police custody amidst strong protest by the advocate of the accused.
The hearing was disrupted for some time due to internet glitches as the proceedings were conducted virtually.
The police custody remand will be from October 12 to October 15.
The lawyer of accused Ashish Mishra said the police had already interrogated his client for 12 hours on Saturday and if required they could further interrogate him in the jail hence there was no need for a police remand. The lawyer also said that this was a high profile case and the life of Ashish would be in threat outside the jail. He also said that though the SIT gave 40 written questions to Ashish Mishra, they asked more than 1,000 questions on Saturday.
However, public prosecutor SP Yadav said that the 15-day remand was required for further investigation in the case as on Saturday during first interrogation, the accused did not cooperate with the investigating team.
But the lawyer of the accused opposed this, saying that Ashish Mishra had fully cooperated with the SIT during interrogation.
Ashish Mishra was arrested on Saturday night after 12 hours of interrogation. He has been accused of crushing four farmers and others by his car during a violence at Tikonia area of Lakhimpur Kheri on October 3.
Lakhimpur Kheri district jail Superintendent PP Singh said Mishra was being housed in quarantine barrack number 21 designated for new jail inmates.
Earlier, security was beefed up outside the Sessions Court in Lakhimpur Kheri where Ashish Mishra had to be produced.
The Yogi Adityanath government also deputed 20 IPS officers as nodal heads of sensitive districts in wake of the nationwide bandh called by farmers on October 18 in protest against the death of farmers in Lakhimpur Kheri.
The Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) also gave a call to burn the effigies of the prime minister and the chief minister on October 15 on the occasion of Dussehra. The officers will reach out to farmers and dissuade them from joining the agitation.
ADG (Law and Order) Prashant Kumar said that the leave of all police officers in the state had been cancelled till October 18.
In villages that have the presence of prominent farmer leaders, senior officials will meet them and establish communication.
The 20 IPS officers include ADG (Lucknow Zone) SN Sabat and IG (Lucknow Range) Laxmi Singh. Both will camp in Lakhimpur Kheri.
In Bahraich, ADG (Gorakhpur Zone) Akhil Kumar, DIG (Devipatan) Rakesh Singh and Superintendent of Police Bareilly Ashutosh Shukla will be stationed. Inspector General (Meerut Range) Praveen Kumar will be stationed at Ghaziabad. DIG (Railways) Satyendra Kumar in Shamli.
In Pilibhit, IG (Bareilly Range) Ramit Sharma, SP (UP 112) Ajay Pal and ASP Anil Kumar Jha from DGP headquarters, will be stationed. IG (EOW) Hiralal has been asked to camp in Muzaffarnagar and DIG (Vigilance) LR Kumar in Amroha. In Shahjahanpur, DIG Ravi Shankar Chabbi and ASP Ram Suresh have been deputed.
Special security measures are in place for Tuesday when the 'antim ardas' of the farmers who died in the October 3 incident in Lakhimpur takes place. The post death rituals are being collectively held on a large-scale and farmers from several districts are expected to attend it.