Lakhimpur court frames charges against Ashish Mishra

LUCKNOW: A Lakhimpur Kheri court on Tuesday framed charges against Ashish Mishra, son of Minister of State for Home Affairs Ajay Mishra Teni, and 13 others in connection with Tikunia violence case. Eight persons, including four farmers, three BJP workers and a local journalist, had died during the violence on October 3, 2021.

Mishra is the main accused in the case as four farmers were trampled allegedly by his SUV while they were protesting against the visit of Deputy CM Keshav Maurya in the wake of three contentious farm laws which the Union government scrapped later. Maurya was on a visit to Kheri to participate in an event organised by Teni.

Additional District Judge Sunil Kumar Verma framed charges against all the 14 accused. All of them, barring one Virendra Shukla, who is out on bail, were produced in court on Tuesday through video conferencing. The next date of hearing is December 16 for the prosecution to produce evidences against the accused, according to District Government Counsel (criminal), Arvind Tripathi.  

Besides Mishra, the other accused persons are Ankit Das, Nandan Singh Bisht, Satya Prakash Tripathi, Latif alias Kale, Shekhar Bharti, Sumit Jaiswal, Ashish Pandey, Lavkush Rana, Shishu Pal, Ullhas Kumar alias Mohit Trivedi, Rinku Rana and Dharmendra Banjara under Sections 147 (rioting), 148 (rioting armed with deadly weapons), 149 (offence committed in persecution of common object), 307 (attempt to murder), 326 (voluntarily causing grievous hurt by dangerous weapons), 302 (murder), 427 (mischief causing damage), 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC as well as Section 177 of the Motor Vehicles Act. Charges under Section 201 (for causing disappearance of evidences) of the IPC were framed against the 14th accused, Virendra Shukla, who is out on bail.

Mishra was granted bail by the Allahabad HC earlier this year. The HC order was challenged in the SC which cancelled Mishra’s bail on April 18 and asked him to surrender within a week. He surrendered on April 24.