The forest closes in as the road becomes narrower. The vegetation along the Tikonia-Banbirpur road, leading up to the Nepal border in Lakhimpur Kheri, Uttar Pradesh, becomes thicker as the shadows cast by the teak and saal trees fluctuate with streaks of sunlight. Closer to habitation in the Nighasan area, the forests give way to fields, mainly of sugarcane and paddy. They are cultivated predominantly by the Sikh farmers of the region that is part of the fertile Terai belt. It was into one such sugarcane field that Ashish Mishra, son of Union minister for state for home Ajay Kumar Mishra, escaped after his convoy comprising a jeep and two SUVs allegedly ran over farmers dispersing after their peaceful protest, crushing four of them to death on October 3. An on-duty local journalist was also mowed down. Three others, who were in the vehicles, were allegedly lynched by the protesters.
Ashish, popularly known as Monu bhaiya, was arrested on October 9 on charges of murder, rioting and conspiracy after he failed to establish his alibi. He had claimed he was four kilometres away in Banbirpur바카라where the Mishras have their ancestral house바카라waiting for the annual 바카라dangal바카라 (wrestling match) to begin. October 3 was an important day for him as deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya had agreed to be chief guest at the 바카라dangal바카라 at Maharaja Ugrasen Inter College. Ashish바카라s father organises this event on Gandhi Jayanti every year, but it was postponed by a day this year to accommodate Maurya바카라s schedule. It was supposed to be a show of strength to showcase Ashish바카라s popularity in the area and pitch him as the BJP candidate from Nighasan seat in the forthcoming UP elections.
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Slogans on a wall in support of Ashish Mishra바카라s candidature for the Nighasan assembly seat.
The hoardings and graffiti that greet one on entering the area are testimony to his political ambitions. 바카라Yuvaon ki pukaar, Monu bhaiya ab ki baar (Call of the youth: this time Monu bhaiya),바카라 screamed one of them. It was a given in this Brahmin-dominated area Ashish, 40, would carry forward his father바카라s legacy. A two-time MP from the area, Ajay Mishra was recently inducted into the Union cabinet as the only Brahmin face from UP. With Brahmins comprising over 12 per cent of the state바카라s population, the BJP wanted to ensure they found representation in the cabinet.
The convoy of cars that ploughed into the farmers had gone to receive Maurya. He was initially supposed to arrive in a chopper that was to land on the local playground. However, hundreds of farmers had congregated there to show black flags to the deputy CM and condemn what Ajay Mishra had said at a public meeting regarding their ongoing protests. Mishra, locally popular as Teni Maharaj, had proclaimed: 바카라Aise logon se kehnaa chahtaa hoon, sudhar jao nahi to saamna karo aake바카라 hum aapko sudhaar denge, do minute bhi nahi lagenge (I want to tell these protesters they should either mend their ways or face me. I will mend their ways. It won바카라t take even two minutes.)바카라
Local people in Lakhimpur Kheri and Sitapur
Maurya decided to travel by road instead, and finally cancelled his programme following the violence. Ever since it has been a spiral of grief for the families that lost their kin in Tikonia, and a shot of adrenaline for sundry political parties that rushed to pay their condolences to the bereaved. The tragic incident leading to the death of eight people has laid bare all the socio-political frailties. It has highlighted the underpinnings of caste in the state, the innate sense of entitlement among the socially privileged and the simmering anger waiting to erupt on the ground.
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To manage the law and order situation, the administration banned the entry of political leaders and cut off internet services in the area to prevent the circulation of inflammatory videos. There was no police investigation for 48 hours after the incident. The Crime Branch forensics team arrived to inspect the unsecured spot, including the two charred vehicles, only on the third day, citing intermittent rainfall as an excuse. Bloodstains were washed away by the rain and the fire had already erased the fingerprints.
바카라We found two cartridges in the burnt jeep,바카라 says Crime Branch officer Vidyaram Diwakar as he inspects the site. 바카라We will match them with the weapon and nail the accused. We also have technical tools that will help pinpoint the location of the accused from the cell phone towers.바카라
On October 6, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was allowed to take a five-member delegation to meet some of the families of the deceased. His sister and party general secretary in-charge of UP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who was released from detention in Sitapur that day, was part of the delegation along with Punjab CM Charanjit Singh Channi and Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel.
They first visited the family of Lovepreet Singh, 19, the youngest protestor to die, followed by that of journalist Raman Kashyap. Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav also visited the families of Kashyap and the killed farmers. A Bahujan Samaj Party delegation led by general secretary S.C. Mishra met the families and constituted a team of lawyers to fight the case on their behalf pro-bono.
A villager at a police checkpoint on the Sitapur-Lakhimpur inter-district border.
Lovepreet바카라s body lay in a glass casket as his father Satnam Singh cleared a section of his paddy field, tears flowing from his eyes. He was making space to cremate his eldest child as his two younger daughters consoled their mother. 바카라He promised me that he would be back by evening. I got a call from him when he was being taken to the hospital. All he could say was 바카라papa jaldi aa jao바카라 (papa, come soon). But it was too late by the time we reached the hospital,바카라 says Satnam Singh.
바카라He wanted a better life for all of us and was preparing for IELTS so he could go to Canada. What will I do with the compensation money? I want justice,바카라 he says, his tears giving way to anger. While representatives of all political parties have visited his house to pay their condolences, there was nobody from the ruling BJP. 바카라Only officers of the local administration, who came with the compensation cheque,바카라 he says.
Bichhattar Singh, a septuagenarian farmer, doesn바카라t think there will be justice. 바카라We do not matter as we cannot make or break a government. Monu bhaiya is a Brahmin and the community바카라s votes matter. Why do you think Teni Maharaj was made a minister at the Centre? Because they want the powerful Brahmin community to vote for the BJP. The government doesn바카라t care for Sikhs or for farmers. Haryana and Punjab are buying paddy from farmers at Rs 1,900 per quintal. We are not even getting Rs 1,100. We have lost all hope,바카라 says the dejected farmer.
Home to nearly one lakh Sikhs바카라of the total 6.5 lakh population바카라Lakhimpur Kheri is often referred to as 바카라mini Punjab바카라. Comprising just under three per cent of the total population of the district, it is the largest for any district in UP. They may not count for much in electoral terms, but the reverberations of the incident are bound to be felt in poll-bound Punjab and to some extent in Uttarakhand, with the adjoining Udham Singh Nagar district having a sizeable Sikh population.
Durga Devi, a Modi fan, at a bicyle repair shop at Bijnore chauraha.
Hari Om, who runs a tea stall in the Kheri area, believes Ashish Mishra would still win if he is given a ticket. 바카라His arrest won바카라t make much difference. As long as Teni Maharaj is there, no other party can win from this seat,바카라 he says. Ajay Mishra, who used to settle disputes in the village as a zila parishad member even before he joined the BJP and was elected as the Nighasan MLA in 2012, has the reputation of a 바카라bahubali바카라 (strongman). His was the only seat that the BJP won among the nine in Lakhimpur Kheri. In 2014, he fought the LS poll and became the first Brahmin to win from the constituency that had traditionally sent Kurmi (OBC) MPs to the Lok Sabha.
Though the Lakhimpur Kheri incident may not dent the BJP바카라s electoral prospects in UP too much, it will make a difference in terms of perception. Sanjay Kumar, political analyst at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, believes the incident has pushed the BJP on the back foot. 바카라The government conceding to the demands of farmers so quickly is an indication of that. It has definitely damaged the image of the BJP government in the state,바카라 he says. According to him, it바카라s too early to say whether it바카라s a turning point in the run-up to the elections, but points to 바카라dangerous signals바카라 for the BJP.
The faultlines on the ground have certainly become deeper, something that BJP leader and MP from neighbouring Pilibhit, Varun Gandhi, warns about. Two days after he was removed from the party바카라s national executive, ostensibly for his vocal support for the protesting farmers, he tweeted: 바카라An attempt to turn #LakhimpurKheri into a Hindu vs Sikh battle is being made. Not only is this an immoral & false narrative, it is dangerous to create these fault-lines & reopen wounds that have taken a generation to heal. We must not put petty political gains above national unity.바카라
Indeed, a narrative is being woven that many protesting formers were 바카라Khalistanis바카라 sporting t-shirts with Bhindranwale바카라s picture. Pradeep Gupta, who owns the biggest sweets shop in the market, was managing Ashish Mishra바카라s campaign in Nighasan. 바카라Some of them may have been genuine farmers, but many had come from outside, may be from Punjab, to create unrest here,바카라 he says. 바카라A farmer would never react the way those Khalistanis reacted by lynching the BJP workers.바카라
Family members of 27-year-old BJP worker Shubham Mishra say he was beaten up so badly that they could not recognise his face. 바카라There are videos in which you can see farmers wearing Bhindranwale vests thrashing the BJP workers. We could identify Shubham only from his underwear. His clothes too had been torn away,바카라 says his distraught father Vijay Mishra. 바카라Just because he supported the BJP, does that make him less human? Does that give the farmers or Khalistanis the freedom to lynch him? Why didn바카라t Rahul or Priyanka visit us? Haven바카라t we lost our son? His one-and-a-half-year-old daughter didn바카라t even get to know him. What kind of justice is that?바카라
Shubham was Ashish Mishra바카라s classmate and had joined him to support his campaign. 바카라He was a happy-go-lucky person who had transformed during the lockdown. He had become responsible and his business of construction material was looking up. Whenever his father asked him to do better, he would say laughingly that if he became any better, god will call him early as he is known to call good people early,바카라 says his uncle Sanup Mishra before breaking into tears.
The UP administration never announced compensation for Shubham바카라s family or for the families of the other two slain BJP workers, Hari Om Mishra and Shyam Sundar. Compensation cheques were quietly sent to them. The Congress-run governments in Punjab and Chhattisgarh announced additional compensation of Rs 50 lakh each for the families of the deceased farmers and the journalist, but excluded the BJP workers.
바카라It is not about humanity or empathy. The Lakhimpur violence and the deaths have become election issues. 바카라Ab ki baar Lucknow ka raasta Lakhimpur se ho kar jayega바카라 (this time the route to Lucknow will go via Lakhimpur),바카라 says Amit Verma, Shubham바카라s neighbour. The issue, though, doesn바카라t seem to have much resonance outside Lakhimpur Kheri. The government바카라s future appears to be hinging more on economic indicators.
Officials handing over a cheque to the widow of journalist Raman Kashyap, at Nighasan.
At the Bijnore chauraha (crossing) on the outskirts of Lucknow, the discussion veers around the economic fallout of the lockdown, job losses, unemployment, inflation and the efficacy of the Yogi Adityanath government바카라s schemes. Vidyanshu, who runs a cycle repair shop near the crossing, says the lockdown set him back financially and he will probably take a long time to recover. 바카라Corona ki problem to thi magar uss se zyada mehangai ki hai (Corona was a problem, but inflation is bigger),바카라 he says. He lists out some government schemes that do not seem to be working properly. These include the scholarship scheme, Ujjwala, free power connection and the gaushala (cow shelter) scheme.
바카라There isn바카라t much awareness about the schemes,바카라 says Ram Dayal Gautam, who has come to get his cycle repaired. 바카라People got free gas connections and subsidy on purchase of cylinders for some time under Ujjwala, but we are all paying Rs 900 per cylinder now. The gaushalas are not working and cows are dying on the roads. Power connections are free, but power is expensive and supply is erratic.바카라
While they all claim the contest will be between BJP바카라s Yogi Adityanath and SP바카라s Akhilesh Yadav, there is some interest in what AAP is offering and its performance in Delhi. The Congress and the BSP are not occupying any mind space of the voters yet. 바카라It is too early to say anything,바카라 says Kaushalendra Kumar, a taxi driver in Lucknow. 바카라Six months is a long time in politics. People will make up their minds in the last few days before the elections.바카라
Vidyanshu바카라s octogenarian grandmother Durga Devi wants the last word on the discussion 바카라 바카라Hum to Modi ko hi vote denge. Uska bolne ka tareeka bahut solid hai! (I will vote for PM Modi only. His speech delivery is solid).바카라
Lucknow is certainly far removed from ground zero at Lakhimpur Kheri.
(This appeared in the print edition as "The Killing Fields")
