A magistrate’s court on Monday gave the police three days’ custody of Ashis Mishra in the Lakhimpur Kheri massacre case, rejecting the police’s demand for 14 days’ custody of the son of Union minister of state for home Ajay Mishra Teni.

Ashis’s police remand will begin from 10am on Tuesday and end at 10am on Friday, Lakhimpur Kheri chief judicial magistrate Chinta Ram said in his 4.45pm order.

Special prosecution officer (SPO) S.P. Yadav told reporters the judge set three conditions for remand.

The judge said: “There should be adequate security when he is taken out (of prison or any police premises); he wouldn’t be harassed; and his lawyers may be present at some distance (during questioning).”

A senior high court lawyer said these conditions were “routine”.

After Friday 10am, Ashis will be back in judicial custody unless the special investigation team (SIT) succeeds in securing an extension of police remand.

A police officer in Lucknow said the SIT might seek custody extension on Thursday. “Three days are not enough, but the SIT will collect as much evidence as it can and then seek extension of police custody.”

Ashis is alleged to have been in a Thar jeep belonging to his father that, along with some other cars in a convoy it was leading, ran over and killed four farmers and a journalist at a farmers’ protest in Tikunia, Lakhimpur Kheri, on October 3.

He was arrested at 10.48pm on Saturday, after nearly 12 hours of questioning, for “being non-cooperative”. Judicial magistrate Deeksha Bharti then sent him to 14 days’ judicial (jail) custody.

Sources said SPO Yadav had told the court on Monday that the police needed custody of Ashis because he had stonewalled many of the SIT’s questions on Saturday.

The defence argued the police planned to torture Ashis to extract a false confession. The magistrate asked the police not to harass the accused and the police said they would not.

Awadhesh Dwivedi, counsel for Ashis, told reporters: “We argued in court that the SIT had grilled Ashish for 12 hours on Saturday and he had cooperated with the interrogators. The probe team had also seized his mobile phone and revolver. There was no point seeking police remand.”

He said the defence told the court the police wanted custody “only to torture him, give him third degree and make him confess to something which he was not involved in”.

Dwivedi added: “The police are groping in the dark; they have no evidence that Ashish was in Tikunia when the incident took place. He has furnished video clips to prove he was in his village of Banvirpur, 4km away, attending a wrestling programme. Besides, Ashis is in jail and the police could have interrogated him there.”

The Lucknow officer who spoke to this newspaper said Ashis might be taken to the scene of the carnage to reconstruct the events.

He said the SIT would also seek custody of Ashish Pandey and Luv Kush Rana, the two others arrested in the case, “so that the three of them can be brought face to face in front of the probe team”.

Pandey and Rana, who are alleged to have been in the convoy of cars that mowed down the five victims, were arrested on Friday and sent to 14 days’ judicial custody.

The murder FIR mentions 11 accused but names only six. Of the six, three have been arrested while the remaining three were allegedly lynched by the farmers after the cars crushed five people.

While all the lawyers were present in the court physically on Monday, Ashis was connected from jail via videoconferencing.