Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) on Monday compared the Lakhimpur Kheri incident, where 8 people lost their lives including 4 farmers, to the Jallianwala Bagh massacre and demanded stringent punishment for those involved in this matter.
BSP national spokesperson Sudhindra Bhadoria hit out at the Uttar Pradesh government for not allowing his party's general secretary Satish Chandra Mishra to visit Lakhimpur Kheri.
"The type of despicable attack on farmers is being condemned all over India. I would like to say that 8 farmers have lost their lives in such a way as in the Jallianwala Bagh incident where unarmed people were killed. Farmer is our Annadata. Should they be crushed to death with a car? Nothing could be more painful than this. I demand that severe punishment be given," the BSP leader told ANI.
Questioning Mishra's alleged house arrest, Bhadoria said that "We have freedom of movement so we can go anywhere. Why we are being placed under house arrest? Are we criminals?"
He also alleged that the farmers' demands are being ignored.
"These people have no mercy for farmers, their demands are being ignored. This government is not even ready to think about them, so the farmers are now agitating and are expressing their views in a peaceful and constitutional way, but the BJP government and the Chief Minister there does not even want to give them the constitutional right to keep their point," he added.
Earlier in the day, the BSP chief Mayawati demanded a judicial probe into the issue.
In a series of tweets, Mayawati also alleged that BSP's National General Secretary and Rajya Sabha MP Satish Chandra Mishra has been placed under house arrest.
"BSP's National General Secretary and Rajya Sabha MP SC Mishra was placed under house arrest late last night at his residence in Lucknow, which is still continuing so that the party delegation under his leadership could not go to Lakhimpur Kheri to get the correct report of the farmer's massacre. This is very sad and shameful," she said.
She further said, "Due to the involvement of two BJP ministers in the Kheri case of UP, proper government inquiry into this incident and justice to the victims and strict punishment to the guilty does not seem possible. Therefore, BSP demands a judicial inquiry, in the incident in which several people have died."
As many as eight people died in the Lakhimpur Kheri incident on Sunday, said Uttar Pradesh police.
Samyukta Kisan Morcha, an umbrella body of several farmer unions, alleged that Ashish Mishra Teni, son of Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Ajay Mishra Teni arrived with three vehicles around the time that farmers were dispersing from their protest at the helipad and mowed down farmers and towards the end also attacked SKM leader Tajinder Singh Virk directly, by trying to run a vehicle over him.
However, Ashish Mishra refuted SKM's allegations and said he was not present at the spot where the incident took place.
MoS Teni also said that his son was not present at the spot, adding that some miscreants mingled with protesting farmers and pelted the stones at the car which lead to the 'unfortunate incident'.
The Jallianwala Bagh massacre took place on April 13, 1919, when troops of the British Indian Army, under the command of Colonel Reginald Dyer, fired machine guns into a crowd of unarmed protesters and pilgrims who had gathered in Jallianwala Bagh in Punjab's Amritsar on the occasion of Baisakhi.
( With inputs from ANI )
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