The Allahabad High Court has granted bail to Ashish Mishra alias Monu, son of Union Minister of State for Home Ajay Mishra, in the Lakhimpur Kheri incident in which four farmers were killed after a convoy of cars associated with them ran over protesting farmers in October 2021.
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While granting bail to Mr. Ashish Mishra, Justice Rajeev Singh said that during the course of the investigation, no firearm injuries were found either on the body of any of the deceased or on the body of any injured person. According to the first information report (FIR) lodged in the case, Mr. Ashish Mishra was in one of the cars and was also accused of shooting dead one of the farmers. However, the postmortem report did not show any bullet injury.
The court said it could not “shut its eyes” to the killing of the three persons, including the driver, sitting in the vehicle, who were killed by the protesters.
“The photograph available in the case diary clearly reveals the brutality of the protesters, those [who] were beating the said three persons, namely, Hariom Mishra, Shubham Mishra and Shyam Sunder,” the judge said.
The court also noted that there was “serious lackness of the District Administration, as some persons, for their political benefits, call innocent persons, without due permission under law”.
“In the present case, though the order under Section 144 Cr.P.C. was operating, thousands of persons from different districts, even from other States gathered at one place, which was very well within the knowledge of the District Administration, as is evident from the statement of its officials, but neither any preventive action was taken nor any action against the organisers had been taken,” the court said.
Justice Singh directed the Chief Secretary of U.P. to issue necessary directions and guidelines for regulating such assemblies and processions in order to avoid inconvenience caused to citizens by them.