Union Minister Ajay Mishra's son Ashish was on Thursday granted bail by the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court over four months after he was accused of killing four farmers by running them over with his vehicle at Lakhimpur Kheri.
A single bench comprising Justice Rajiv Singh ordered Mishra's enlargement on bail on a petition moved by the latter after his bail application was rejected by the district court. The court had reserved its judgement on the petition last month.
The court verdict comes amid the polling for the first phase of elections in the state in western UP districts. Polling is scheduled to be held in Lakhimpur Kheri in the third phase on February 20.
Mishra, who was the main accused in the killing of the farmers, was arrested by the special investigation team (SIT) probing the incident after his marathon grilling for over eleven hours a few days after the incident.
In its chargesheet filed in the district court, the SIT made Ashish Mishra a key accused and stated that the violence was part of a 'pre-planned conspiracy' and that the accused persons had perpetrated the crime deliberately and invoked sections 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder), 326 (voluntarily causing grievous hurt by dangerous weapons), 120 B (Criminal conspiracy) of the IPC and some others in the case.
Eight people, including four farmers and a local scribe, were killed in the violence at Tikonia in the district in October when hundreds of farmers held protests against union minister Ajay Mishra over the latter's remarks threatening them of dire consequences if they continued to oppose the new farm laws.
While both Ashish and his father Ajay Mishra had claimed that the former was not present in any of the vehicles, one of which ran over a crowd of farmers killing four of them, the farmers claimed that the minister's son was in one of the SUVs with a friend of his.
The incident had triggered nationwide outrage and the opposition parties had demanded sacking of Ajay Mishra from the union cabinet. The BJP government, however, rejected the demand for sacking apparently fearing a backlash from the Brahmin community in the assembly polls in UP.
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