Police arrest Indian minister's son in killing of farmers

Indian police say they have arrested the son of a junior minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government as a suspect days after nine people were killed in a deadly escalation of yearlong demonstrations

LUCKNOW, India -- Indian police on Saturday arrested the son of a junior minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government as a suspect days after nine people were killed in a deadly escalation of yearlong demonstrations by tens of thousands of farmers against contentious agriculture laws in northern India, a police officer said.

Four farmers died Sunday when a car owned by Junior Home Minister Ajay Mishra ran over a group of protesting farmers in Lakhimpur Kheri, a town in Uttar Pradesh state, officials and farm leaders said.

Farm leaders alleged that Mishra’s son was in the car when it ran over the protesters, but Mishra denied it. His driver and three members of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, who were in a car, were all killed by the protesters by beating them with sticks in the violence that broke out after the incident.

Police officer Upendra Agarwal said on Saturday that Ashish Misra was arrested following day-long questioning in the town after "he failed to furnish any supportive evidence to prove that he was not present in any of the three vehicles that plowed through a crowd of farmers killing four of them."