In yet another jolt to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party defending its Union Minister of State for Home Ajay Mishra `Teni’, the Special Investigating Team (SIT) finally drew the conclusion that the Lakhimpur Kheri violence which that claimed eight lives was a “pre-planned conspiracy causing death”.
The SIT probing the case has moved a fresh application in the court of the chief judicial magistrate to replace lesser charges in the case like causing death by negligence with attempt to murder.
Teni, while pleading his son's 'innocence' in the case, had said he would submit his resignation if his son was found to be guilty. Now the SIT move would put pressure on him and the government to remove him from the ministry.
The SIT urged the CJM to replace Indian Penal Code sections 279 (rash driving/riding), 338 (causing grievous injuries by negligence) and 304A (causing death by a rash and negligent act) with IPC Section 307 (attempt to murder) among others in the case related to the October 3 violence, in which four farmers were among those killed.
The SIT also retained IPC sections 302 (murder), 147 (rioting), 148 (rioting, armed with a deadly weapon), 149 (every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object) and 120B (criminal conspiracy). It also recommended addition of IPC sections 326 (voluntarily causing injuries by dangerous weapons), 34 (acts by several persons with common intentions) and sections 3/25/30 of the Arms Act in warrants of the 13 accused.
Ajay Mishra's son, Ashish Mishra, is among the 13 accused already arrested in the case. The accused have been already booked for murder but the SIT so far had been probing the case as that of an accident.
The Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the UP Police had on Monday moved an application in a court seeking to invoke four more criminal charges, including the attempt to murder and under the Arms Act, against the 13 accused arrested in the case.
Senior prosecution officer (SPO) SP Yadav on Tuesday said, “Chief Investigator of the SIT Vidyaram Diwakar, probing Tikunia violence, moved an application in the court of CJM Chinta Ram stating the probe and evidence gathered so far established that the violence leading to the death of five people and injuries to several others was not an act of negligence or carelessness.”
'The chief investigator stated in his application that the act was a pre-planned conspiracy, causing death, owing to which the earlier IPC sections in the FIR namely sections 279, 338 and 304A were dropped and IPC sections 307, 326, 34 and sections 3/25/30 of the Arms Act were added, Yadav said.
He added that the chief investigating officer urged the court to rectify the warrants of the 13 accused who are in judicial custody.
On October 3, a convoy of three SUVs, including Mahindra Thar belonging to Union Minister of State for Home Ajay Mishra, ran over a group of farmers protesting at Tikunia crossing, killing four of them and a journalist, and leaving nearly half-a-dozen others injured. Two BJP leaders and a driver of Thar were lynched in the subsequent violence. Two FIRs were lodged in this connection.
The UP government had formed a nine-member SIT to investigate both the cases. The SIT was later reconstituted by the Supreme Court , which stressed that “in investigating cases like this, justice must not only be done but also be seen and perceived to be done”, and appointed retired Punjab and Haryana High Court judge Justice (Retd) Rakesh Kumar Jain, to monitor the probe in the case.
The special investigators, while investigating the violence, had identified and arrested 13 people in FIR number 219, including Minister’s son Ashish Mishra, Sumit Jaiswal, Ankit Das and others, while in FIR number 220, four people were identified and arrested. All the accused are presently in judicial custody.