Mpost Bureau
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday took suo motu cognisance of the recent Lakhimpur Kheri violence, in which a total of eight people have died, four allegedly mowed down by a vehicle owned by Union Minister of State and BJP MP Ajay Kumar Mishra Teni.
A Bench led by CJI N V Ramana will hear the matter on October 7.
The development came on a day when several Opposition leaders, including Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi, flocked to Lakhimpur Kheri to meet the families of the victims of the violence.
Meanwhile, junior minister Mishra met Union Home minister Amit Shah on Wednesday for the first time since a murder case was registered against his son, sources said.
Mishra also attended his first-floor office in the North Block here and stayed for about half-an-hour before visiting Shah at his residence, they said.
The two leaders were closeted for about half an hour and Mishra is understood to have briefed Shah about Sunday's incident in his home district of Lakhimpur Kheri.
The Congress leaders, on the other hand, met the family members of farmers killed in the violence in Lakhimpur Kheri and promised them all assistance. They arrived in Lakhimpur after the Uttar Pradesh government allowed them to visit the violence-hit district. Rahul and his sister left for Lakhimpur together in a car from a police guest house in Sitapur where she was kept in detention since Monday morning.
Senior Congress leader Sachin Pilot on Wednesday said he was detained along with Acharya Pramod Krishnam by the police in UP's Moradabad when they were on their way to meet the families of the four farmers killed in the violence.
Sitapur Sub-Divisional Magistrate (Sadar) Pyarelal Maurya said on Wednesday evening that Priyanka Gandhi has been released from detention.
Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi and his Chhattisgarh counterpart Bhupesh Baghel accompanied them in another car, while Congress leaders Randeep Surjewala and Deepender Singh Hooda travelled in a separate vehicle.
Their first stop was home of deceased farmer Lovepreet Sigh in Palia tehsil. From there, they left for the native place of journalist Raman Kashyap, who was one of the victims, in Nighasan tehsil. Their last stop in the district will be home of Nachatar Singh in Dhauraha tehsil.
Palia is about 80 km from Lakhimpur town, and Nighasan is another 15-20 km and Dhauraha is another 60-70 km from there. Lakhimpur Kheri is around 225 km from capital Lucknow.
The Union Minister of State for Home's native place Banbirpur falls under Nighasan tehsil.
The two farmers and the scribe of a private TV channel were natives of Lakhimpur, while two other farmers who died in the October 3 incident hailed from neighouring Bahraich district. In addition to the five, three others — two BJP workers and a driver of Ajay Kumar Mishra — had also lost their lives in the revenge action of farmer protesters.
The Congress leaders' visit came after Uttar Pradesh permitted politicians to travel to Lakhimpur Kheri but not more than five people at a time.
Earlier in the day, a high-voltage drama played out at the Lucknow airport where Rahul staged a dharna briefly to protest the administration's decision to take him to Lakhimpur in a police vehicle instead of his own.
Later, the administration relented and the former AICC president reached Sitapur guest house in his own vehicle on his way to Lakhimpur Kheri.
At the PAC guest house, Rahul, Priyanka Gandhi other party leaders stayed for nearly one hour before setting off for their journey to Lakhimpur.
With the Lakhimpur incident coming ahead of the election in Uttar Pradesh early next year, opposition parties smelled a chance to corner the BJP.
Before the high-level Congress team reached Lakhimpur, a delegation of Aam Aadmi Party landed at Dhaurahra tehsil, home of farmer Nachatar Singh.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal also spoke to the family of Nachatar Singh over phone and expressed deepest condolences and assured all help to the bereaved family. The AAP team later visited the home of scribe Raman Kashyap.
Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav and Bahujan Samaj Party general secretary S C Mishra have finalised their itinerary to Lakhimpur for Thursday.
SP sources said Akhilesh Yadav will first go to the home of farmer Nachatar Singh around 1 pm followed by a visit to the house of Raman Kashyap and end with a trip to house of Lovepreet Singh in Palia tehsil.
BSP General Secretary will set out for Lakhimpur from his Lucknow house around 10 am on Thursday to meet families of the victims of the violence, a party statement said.
Talking to the press at the airport, Gandhi said he or Priyanka being sent to jail was irrelevant as the main question was people being crushed by criminals, referring to the Lakhimpur Kheri episode.
"Those who should have been in jail are not being put in jail. We are being stopped from meeting the aggrieved families of the farmers," he said.
He also hit out the UP government after he was not allowed to exit the Chaudhari Charan Singh airport, where a group of CRPF personnel were seen preventing his movement out of the airport, despite permission being granted to visit Lakhimpur Kheri.