Leaders of Opposition parties and Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) have started reaching Lakhimpur Kheri, where about eight people died after a car rammed into protesting farmers and the violence that followed.
Former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav is kept in house arrest at his official residence in Lucknow. AICC general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is under police custody at a guest house in Sitapur. Workers of Samajwadi Party have started a sit-in in front of Yadav’s house demanding that Akhilesh should be released and allowed to visit Lakhimpur Kheri.
Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said she was detained without a warrant or her notice while on her way to the site where four farmers were killed.
The Uttar Pradesh police has registered a case of murder against Ashish Mishra, son of Minister of State for Home Ajay Mishra. The farmers, however, demanded that Mishra should be immediately expelled from the council of ministers.
SKM’s letter to President
“Ajay Mishra had already built a context to this attack by giving inflammatory and derogatory speeches against the farmers. It is no coincidence that on the same day, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar is publicly inciting his party workers to take up lathis and indulge in violence against farmers,” the SKM said in a letter to President Ramnath Kovind.
They demanded that Mishra should be dismissed from his post and a case should be filed against him for inciting violence and spreading communal hatred.
“The Union Minister’s son Ashish Mishra ‘Monu’ and his fellow goons should be booked for 302 (murder) and arrested immediately. The investigation of this incident should be done by an SIT under the supervision of the Supreme Court. Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, who is inciting violence while holding a constitutional post, should be sacked from his post,” the SKM added in the letter.