New Delhi: Unions steering the ongoing agitation against the three farm laws on Tuesday led the last respects for five of the eight victims of Lakhimpur Kheri violence and decided to carry their ashes across the country even as attending politicians paid homage while staying offstage at the ceremony.
Congress’ Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Deepender Hooda, RLD’s Jayant Chaudhary and Samajwadi Party’s Lakhimpur district president Rampal Yadav participated in the memorial service for deceased farmers Daljit Singh, Lovpreet Singh, Nachhatar Singh and Gurvinder Singh and journalist Raman Kashyap. They are alleged to have been mowed down by SUVs belonging to junior Home Minister Ajay Mishra whose son Ashish was taken to the Crime Branch office in Lakhimpur on Tuesday for interrogation in the case for murder charges.
The stage at the ‘antim ardas’ ceremony attended by a large number of farmers from UP, Punjab, Haryana, MP, Rajasthan, HP and Uttarakhand, presented a poignant picture with families of the deceased sitting in sombre mood holding the portraits of their loved ones. No politician was allowed on the stage with Priyanka, Hooda and Chaudhary seated among farmers on a six-acre field arranged for the event.
“Our hopes for justice are pinned on the farmers’ movement,” said Pawan Kashyap, the brother of Raman Kashyap, after BKU leader Rakesh Tikait reiterated the SKM’s call to burn effigies of PM Modi and Amit Shah on Dasehra; participate in ‘rail roko’ on October 10 and in the Lucknow ‘mahapanchayat’ on October 26. As the memorial service drew to a close, all SKM leaders held an urn each carrying ashes of the five deceased, which they plan to take across all districts of UP and all states before immersion ahead of the ‘mahapanchayat’. The leaders called the outreach “Shaheed kalash yatras”.
Fourth arrest in Kheri violence
The UP Police have arrested a fourth suspect, Shekhar Bharti, who was produced before the court which sent him to judicial custody.