Lakhimpur Kheri violence: Arms recovered from Lucknow flat owned by accused

Lucknow: The special investigation team (SIT) probing the Lakhimpur Kheri violence on Friday brought two accused persons, Ankit Das and Latif alias Kale, to a flat in Hussainganj area of Lucknow and recovered a revolver and a gun from there, police sources said. They said the Hussainganj flat belongs to Das. The revolver licence holder is Das, while Latif holds the licence of the gun. After the incident on 3 October, Das had escaped from the spot and hid the weapons in his apartment. Police will take the arms for a forensic test, so that it could be known whether it was used during the violence. Sources also said that after the violence in Tikonia village on 3 October, Das fled from there and hid himself in a hotel in Lucknow. After recovering the weapons from the flat, police reached the hotel located on Lohia Path, and took the CCTV footage. Das is the nephew of late Congress leader and former Union minister Akhilesh Das. The SIT probing the Lakhimpur Kheri violence on Thursday took Union Minister Ajay Mishra’s son and three others arrested in the case to recreate the sequence of events leading to the incident in Tikonia village. Amid tight security, the three accused were taken to the site of the incident on the Tikonia-Banbirpur road, around 60 km from district headquarters of Lakhimpur, police said. Eight people died in the violence and of them, four were farmers, allegedly knocked down by a vehicle carrying BJP workers. Infuriated farmers then allegedly lynched some people in the vehicles. The other dead included two BJP workers and their driver. In the incident, a journalist was also killed. Farmers claimed that Union Minister Ajay Mishra’s son Ashish Mishra was in one of the vehicles, an allegation denied by both father and son saying they can produce evidence to prove he was at an event at that time. Ashish Mishra was arrested in the case on 9 October after 12 hours of questioning, and a court has accepted his police custody from 12 October to 15 October. The other three – Shekhar Bharti was arrested on October 12, and Ankit Das and Latif alias Kale were arrested on 13 October. Das, Latif and Bharti are in police custody from 14 October to 17 October. On 7 October, Ashish Pandey and Lavkush Rana were also arrested in connection with the incident.