Ashish Mishra, others taken to site; cops conduct dummy run

Ashish Mishra and three of the six accused in the Lakhimpur Kheri case were taken to the site of the crime on Thursday by the special investigation team probing the case. The aim was to recreate the October 3 happenings and logically reconstruct the crime which led to four farmers dying after they were run over by a vehicle allegedly belonging to Mishra.

Mishra was sent back to judicial custody later in the day as the duration of the police remand ended today. The three other accused who were taken to Tikonia, about 60 km off Lakhimpur Kheri district headquarters, were Shekhar Bharti, Ankit Das, considered Mishra's friend, and Latif alias Kale.

The police made dummies representing farmers and ran a police jeep over them, followed by two other vehicles. Speaking to ET, DIG Upendra Agarwal, head of the SIT probing the case did not divulge insights gained from the recreation. However, he said if Mishra was further required, SIT would seek his fresh custody. Mishra had claimed he was not present at the site of the crime.


Dummy runs are a standard practice in case investigations, but in this particular case, purported video recordings could give a clear idea to the police, once primary authenticity of the videos is confirmed. While the crime scene was cordoned off on Thursday, it has been accessed by several people who visited the site in recent days, including farmers and media, raising questions about gathering clues from the crime scene. Police however, refused to comment on this.