Lakhimpur Kheri violence case live updates: Union minister's son arrested after 12 hours of questioning

Hours after a Special Investigation Team (SIT) was set up and a judicial inquiry panel appointed, the first arrests -- two men, part of Union minister of state for home Ajay Mishra Teni’s convoy that allegedly ran over and killed four farmers -- were made in Sunday’s Lakhimpur Kheri killings case. The minister’s son, Ashish Mishra, has been summoned by the SIT.

Uttar Pradesh Director General of Police (DGP) on Thursday constituted a nine-member committee headed by a DIG-rank officer to monitor the ongoing probe in the Lakhimpur Kheri incident to ensure transparency.

Congress leaders Sachin Pilot and Acharya Pramod Krishnam on way to violence-hit Lakhimpur Kheri in UP were stopped on Delhi-Lucknow highway in Niyamatpur.by Moradabad police, detained for several hours in a guest house and sent back to the state border on Wednesday. Later, speaking with mediapersons, Pilot said, “We were not going there for any politics. We just wanted to meet the families of the victims and share their sorrow.”

Punjab Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu was taken into preventive custody on Thursday afternoon in Saharanpur district, close to the UP-Haryana border, while he was leading thousands of party workers to Lakhimpur Kheri. After over six hours of detention, police allowed Sidhu and 20 others to proceed to Lakhimpur Kheri, where they wanted to meet the family members of farmers who were run over by a vehicle during a protest march. Earlier in the day, the convoy of hundreds of vehicles, cars and SUVs coming from Mohali and carrying Congress workers and scores of state ministers, came to a halt at Saharanpur border, where a cordon of policemen in riot gear had blocked the highway with barricades.

Rashtriya Lok Dal chief Jayant Chaudhary has said that the Lakhimpur Kheri incident, which left eight people dead, was no less than a terror attack. He demanded immediate arrest of Union MoS (home) Ajay Mishra and his son and stringent sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) imposed against them. Chaudhary was in Aligarh on Thursday to address a public rally in Kheri area.

Taking up the violence and deaths in Lakhimpur Kheri, the Supreme Court on Thursday asked the UP government to furnish information on action taken by it in the aftermath of the incident that claimed lives and on how many people have been booked and arrested in the case. A bench of Chief Justice N V Ramana and Justices Surya Kant and Hima Kohli asked the state government for a status report by Friday after UP additional advocate general Garima Prashad informed the court that the state had already appointed a Special Investigation Team to conduct a probe as well as a judicial commission of inquiry headed by a retired Allahabad High Court judge.