Bharatiya Kisan Union leader Rakesh Tikait had also told reporters in Ghazipur before leaving for Lakhimpur Kheri that Monu, the elder son of Ajay Misra, was driving an SUV and that he had mowed down “(kuchal diya)” the farmers.
Opposition parties have condemned the incident, with the Congress describing it as an attempt to crush democracy. The party has demanded that the minister step down, a sitting Supreme Court judge investigate the deaths and that Khattar be sacked. Party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra set out for Lakhimpur Kheri on foot from Lucknow on Sunday with party workers.
Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee said a five-member team of her party would visit the families on Monday.
The NCP and the Samajwadi Party have condemned the incident.
Samajwadi president and former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav said in a Hindi tweet: “It is most inhuman and cruel that the son of the Union minister of state for home crushed to death the farmers who were peacefully protesting there.”
Internet services have been suspended in Lakhimpur Kheri and prohibitory orders imposed.
Late in the night, the police said a large number of farmers had gathered on Gurdwara Road and Saharanpur Road in Lakhimpur Kheri and damaged half-a-dozen cars.
Ajay Rai, the Tikunia station house officer, said: “I was deployed to prevent the farmers going to the Union minister’s village. But the farmers left the main road and reached the village through agricultural fields. We are trying to find out whose SUV killed the farmers.”
Four farmers protesting with black flags on Sunday were mowed down by a car linked to a Union minister at his village in Lakhimpur Kheri, Uttar Pradesh, days after he had warned that the protesters would be fixed in “two minutes” if they did not mend their ways.
Four more people had died by the end of the day, additional superintendent of police Arun Kumar Singh said. The Union minister of state for home, Ajay Misra “Teni”, said his driver and three BJP workers had been killed but did not give their names.
NEWS
M. K VERMA
