A witness in the Lakhimpur farmer killing last year allegedly escaped an attempt on his life last night. Dilbagh Singh, a farmer leader, was shot at when he was on his way home in an SUV in Lakhimpur in Uttar Pradesh.
Dilbagh Singh says he was attacked by two men on a bike when he was on a road near Aliganj, driving alone, the police said. He was unhurt.
A leader of the Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU), Mr Singh is a key witness to the October 3 violence at Lakhimpur Kheri, in which four farmers and a journalist were run over by an SUV allegedly driving by Union Minister Ajay Mishra Teni's son Ashish Mishra. Three more were killed in clashes after the incident.
In a complaint to the police, Mr Singh said around 9.30 pm, the attackers deflated a tyre of his SUV, forcing him to stop.
"They asked me to open the door and the windows. They tried to break into the SUV. When they failed, they fired two shots at the driver's side," said the farmer leader.
Mr Singh said he ducked, folded his seat and crouched on the floor to get out of the firing range. The attackers couldn't see him well through the darkened car windows and fled, he added. He went to the police.
The farmer leader said he had sent a gunman provided to him by the district administration on leave as his son was taken ill.
Senior police officer Arun Kumar Singh told PTI that on the complaint of Dilbag Singh, an FIR has been filed and forensic teams have been sent to the spot.
The officer said Dilbagh Singh should have informed the police before sending his armed guard on leave.
"If leave to his gunman had been intimated to us, we would have provided him another gunman as an alternative arrangement," he said, according to PTI.
The Supreme Court had ordered the Uttar Pradesh administration to provide protection to witnesses in the case involving the son of the Union Minister of State for Home, Ajay Mishra, a powerful leader with wide influence in Lakhimpur.
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