Lakhimpur Kheri (UP), February 15
After over four months, Union minister Ajay Mishra’s son Ashish Mishra was released from jail here on Tuesday evening after fulfilling bail conditions pronounced by the Allahabad High Court.
He has been released from jail after completion of bail formalities, Lakhimpur Kheri Jail Superintendent P P Singh told reporters.
Ashish Mishra had been lodged in the jail since October 10 last year in the case related to the killing of four farmers in the violence that had erupted in the course of farmers’ agitation in Tikonia in the district.
The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court had last week granted bail to Ashish Mishra in the case.
The discharge process started after an order from the district court here reached the Lakhimpur Kheri jail.
While a posse of mediapersons and people gathered at the main gate of the jail, Ashish Mishra was taken out of the prison from a gate adjacent to jail superintendent’s residence within the campus.
Union Minister of State for Home Ajay Mishra is present in the district but mediapersons, who visited his home in Lakhimpur town, could not meet him.
The Allahabad High Court had on Monday corrected its order granting bail to Ashish Mishra.
Ashish Mishra had moved the Lucknow bench of the high court on Friday seeking insertion of sections 302 (murder) and 120 B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) that were “inadvertently” not mentioned in the high court order as the jail authorities would not release him due to the omission.
“It is a mere typographical error, while the court already considered the bail under these sections too and, as such, the same may be allowed making the addition of these sections in the order,” said the application.
A bench of Justice Rajeev Singh had on February 10 granted bail to Ashish Mishra in the case. The court had passed the order on the correction application the previous day.
In the bail order passed on Thursday, Sections 147, 148, 149, 307, 326, 427 read with section 34 of the IPC, section 30 of the Arms Act and section 177 of the Motor Vehicle Act were mentioned, but section 302 and section 120 (B) were left out.
The Special Investigation Team (SIT) had named Ashish Mishra as the main accused in the knocking down of the farmers incident in its charge sheet submitted to the court.
Farmers were staging protest in Tikonia viage on October 3 last year against the visit of deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya to Ajay Mishra’s native Banbir village when four of the agitating farmers were crushed under the wheels of a convoy of cars. In the subsequent violence, four others comprising two BJP workers, driver and a journalist were killed.
Voting will take place in eight assembly segments in Lakhimpur Kheri in the fourth phase on February 23.
Earlier in the day, reacting to the bail granted to Ashish Mishra, Rakesh Tikait, a prominent face of the farmers’ stir and the national spokesperson of the Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU), said, “The whole country and whole world watched the most infamous Lakhimpur Kheri episode of Ajay Mishra and Ashish Mishra, who despite having committed a heinous crime gets bail within three months. Everybody is seeing that and he will walk out of jail today.”
“So is such dictatorial government needed, or this type of system needed in which someone who mows down people under a vehicle walks out of jail within three months. How will they behave with the public in times to come? These are our issues that people need to understand,” the farmer leader told reporters.
