Ashish Mishra, the son of junior Union Home Minister Ajay Mishra has been arrested on Saturday, days after nine people were killed during protests by farmers against contentious agriculture laws in Northern India.
Gatekeepers News reports that Indian Police officer, Upendra Agarwal said that Ashish Mishra was taken into custody following a day-long questioning in Lakhimpur Kheri, a town in Uttar Pradesh state.
According to farm leaders, a car owned by the minister ran over a group of protesting farmers in Lakhimpur Kheri on Sunday, killing four people. The farm leaders alleged that the minister’s son was in the vehicle at the time of the incident.
The Minister, Ajay Mishra maintained that his son was not present at the incident but said that a car driven by “our driver” had lost control and hit the farmers after they threw stones at the car and attacked it with sticks and swords.
The angry protesters killed the driver and three members of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the violence that broke out after the incident.
Police also said they recovered the body of a local journalist where violence ensued on Sunday but did not provide further details on how he was killed.
Agarwal, the police officer, said Mishra was arrested after “he failed to furnish any supportive evidence to prove that he was not present in any of the three vehicles that ploughed through a crowd of farmers killing four of them”.
The arrest came a day after India’s top court slammed the state government for not arresting Ashish Mishra.
Darshan Pal, a farmers’ leader, and Akhilesh Singh, an opposition Congress party leader, have demanded the removal of his father from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.
Earlier this week, Police said they have so far arrested six people and filed a criminal complaint against 14 more, including Ajay Mishra, in connection with the deaths of the four farmers.
