A higher court in Uttar Pradesh state on Thursday granted bail to the son of a federal Minister, nearly four months after he was held for allegedly running over a group of protesting farmers.

"Ashish Mishra, my client, has been granted bail by the Allahabad High Court," his lawyer told the media.

Ashish, the son of India's junior Home Minister Ajay Mishra, was arrested by the state police in October 2021 in connection with the incident in which eight people were killed in the state's Lakhimpur Kheri district.

The arrest was made after the country's Supreme Court slammed the Uttar Pradesh government for apparently going slow in the case amid a nationwide outrage over the incident.

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"Union Minister of State for Home Ajay Mishra's son Ashish has been arrested after questioning. Ashish was evasive during his questioning," senior police officer Upendra Aggarwal then told the media.

In fact, on October 3 last year, the junior Minister's motorcade ploughed into the farmers protesting farm reforms that they feared could hurt their livelihoods. 

While four of them were killed after being run over by a car allegedly driven by Ashish, four others died in the ensuing clashes.

The federal Minister, however, was quick to deny that his son was present on the spot. "There were miscreants who had attacked our workers. The farmers died when a car in my convoy overturned."

The violence in Lakhimpur Kheri was just an aggressive manifestation of the year-long protest by millions of farmers who had been camping on the outskirts of Delhi in protest against three contentious farm laws.

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The Indian government was finally forced to revoke the three farm laws later that year.