Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, Oct.26: The Uttar Pradesh government, led by Yogi Adityanth, was chastised by the Supreme Court on Tuesday for the killing of farmers in Lakhimpur-Kheri on October 8, and was ordered to provide safety to witnesses in the case. The state administration was also ordered to speed up the recording of witness statements.
Senior counsel Harish Salve, representing the Uttar Pradesh government, stated that the accounts of 30 witnesses have been recorded and that 23 people claim to be eyewitnesses to the occurrence. The court reacted by asking, “How come there were hundreds of farmers at the event and only 23 eyewitnesses?”
“There was a crowd of 4000-5000 people who are all local people and even post-incident most of them have been agitating. This is what has been reported. Then, the identification of these people should not be a problem”, a bench headed by Chief Justice N.V. Ramana and comprising Justices Surya Kant and Hima Kohli said holding a suo motu hearing on the matter.
Furthermore, it advised the Uttar Pradesh government counsel that having first-hand knowledge is preferable than having information from a bystander if the eyewitness is more trustworthy.
The court also ordered the Uttar Pradesh government to produce a separate status report on the murders of journalist Raman Kashyap and one Shyam Sundar, and set a November 8 hearing date.
