LUCKNOW: The special investigation team (SIT), probing the October 3 incidents in Lakhimpur Kheri in which four farmers were mowed down by a jeep belonging to the son of Union minister of state for home Ajay Mishra, on Sunday recovered a pistol and a gun from the Lucknow apartment of one the arrested accused Ankit Das. While the pistol is registered in the name of Ankit himself, the gun’s licence is in the name of his bodyguard, Latif.
The six-member SIT team brought the duo from Lakhimpur Kheri to Lucknow for recovering the pistol and the gun. The two were allegedly carrying these two weapons at the time of the October 3 incident.
The SIT members later took the duo to a hotel in Gomtinagar where they allegedly stayed after the violence on October 3. As per sources in the police, the team took a Digital Video Recorder (DVR) of the hotel to Kheri.
Both Ankit and Latif, who was also present at the time of the incident, are already in custody. The police custody remand of the accused is slated to end on Sunday October 17.
A senior officer privy to the probe also disclosed that the gun and pistol would be examined by ballistic experts to find out whether the weapons were used on the fateful day or not.
Ankit Das seems to be a close associate of main accused Ashish Mishra as well as his father Ajay Mishra as per his Facebook profile. He was reported to be in one of the SUVs which reportedly rammed into farmers on the fateful day.
Apart from Ankit Das and Latif, his driver Shekhar Bharti, and prime accused Ashish Mishra, the son of MoS of home Ajay Mishra ‘Teni’, have already been arrested. EArlier, the Kheri police had also arrested Luvkush and Ashish Pandey, both known to Ashish’s friends.