Lakhimpur Kheri violence news: BJP obstructing justice by not sacking minister Ajay Mishra, says Rahul Gandhi

In a statement that stoked controversy, farmer leader Rakesh Tikait on Saturday said he does not think of the deaths of BJP workers as “murder” but as a “reaction” to Union minister Ajay Mishra Teni’s convoy running people over. “Who were the ones in the car that killed people? … It was a reaction to an action. There was no planning. Who do you call a culprit? Two cars collide, both drivers step out and fight on the street. What is that? That’s a reaction. It’s not murder,” Bhartiya Kisan Union spokesperson Tikait said at a press conference organised by the Samyukt Kisan Morcha, the umbrella body of protesting farmer organisations, in Delhi.

It has been nearly a week since two BJP workers died in the violence at Banbirpur in Lakhimpur Kheri during a farmers’ protest. The families of both have now said that no senior party leader has come to visit them yet. Shyam Sundar Nishad, 32, was a contractual labourer who was appointed booth in- charge for BJP at Singha Kalan village. Locally, he was the party’s Dalit mobiliser. “He would be at every BJP event in the area. He was loyal to the party,” his father Balak Ram told TOI. He was talking to two policemen about security when TOI visited his house. “Shyam loved watching wrestling. He would go watch the annual event at Banbirpur every year. That day, he’d left for the match early in the morning.”

After nearly 12 hours of intense interrogation by the special investigation team (SIT) on the Lakhimpur Kheri violence in which he has been accused of killing four farmers, Union junior home minister Ajay Mishra Teni’s son Ashish was arrested late on Saturday night. Ashish had skipped summons by the SIT on Friday, after which a second notice had been issued asking him to appear.