Ashis Mishra was sent to judicial custody by a magistrate shortly after his arrest late on Saturday night, but officers said the police special investigation team hoped to get his custody when the minister’s son is produced in court on Monday morning.
Ashis, son of Union minister of state for home Ajay Mishra Teni, was arrested at 10.48pm on Saturday after almost 12 hours of questioning by the SIT in connection with the October 3 murder of four farmers and a journalist in Lakhimpur Kheri.
He was then taken to Lakhimpur district jail, about half a kilometre from the police crime branch office where he was interrogated, to be produced around 11.30pm before a waiting judicial magistrate.
A man who introduced himself as one of Ashis’s lawyers but didn’t give his name spoke to reporters before the district jail on Sunday.
The unidentified person said: “The police wanted Ashis’s custody but we objected. So, judicial magistrate Deeksha Bharti sent him to judicial custody and posted the case for Monday.”
He said the legal team would apply for bail on Monday. He explained that Saturday night’s relief probably owed to the lateness of the hour and the fact that Ashis had already undergone prolonged grilling.
Late on Saturday night, deputy inspector-general of police Upendra Agrawal had told reporters that Ashis, the “main accused”, had “remained evasive throughout the interrogation”.
“He didn’t cooperate and we decided to arrest him formally. We need more information from him, so we will apply for his custody on Monday.”
A Lucknow police officer who spoke to this newspaper provided several details relating to Saturday’s questioning, which he said he had obtained from colleagues in the SIT.
He said Ashis had stonewalled some half a dozen of the 45-odd questions he was asked, and answered the rest evasively.
“Asked where he was during the Tikunia carnage, he said he was in his village Banvirpur, 4km away, where a wrestling programme was on,” the officer said.
“Asked which car in the convoy he was driving when some of the cars ploughed into the farmers, Ashis got irritated and said, ‘I have told you I was in the village’.
“When, after a few more questions, he was asked why he had decided to run the farmers over, he said he wouldn’t answer any more questions.”
The officer said Ashis had come with videos to defend himself.
“When an interrogator said these videos had been ‘manufactured’, Ashis replied that it was the videos showing a jeep (said to be belonging to his father) crushing people that were fake,” the Lucknow officer said.