Lakhimpur Kheri violence: Portion of ashes of 4 farmers immersed in sea near Gateway of India

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A portion of ashes of four farmers killed in the violence at Lakhimpur Kheri in Uttar Pradesh last month was immersed in the Arabian sea near the Gateway of India here on Sunday.

Hundreds of farmers and their leaders, including Rakesh Tikait of the BKU, took out a procession of urns containing the ashes from the Azad Maidan in south Mumbai to the Gateway of India, a distance of nearly 3 km.

The urns were garlanded at the Azad Maidan before they were placed on a decorated vehicle. Police protection was provided to the yatra.

Farmers and leaders had gathered at the Maidan to attend a kisan mahapanchayat or mega conclave under the banner of the Samyukta Shetkari Kamgar Morcha (SSKM).

After the procession reached the iconic monument, select farmers boarded a boat with urns and immersed them in the middle of the sea amid chants of hymns.

The 'Shaheed Kalash Yatra' of the farmer victims of Lakhimpur Kheri, which kicked off from Pune on October 27 and traversed over 30 districts in Maharashtra, visited the statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, the Chaitya Bhoomi of Babasaheb Ambedkar in Mumbai, the memorial to Shaheed Babu Genu and the statue of Mahatma Gandhi on November 27, the SSKM had said in a release earlier in the day.

On Sunday, this yatra visited Hutatma Chowk, which commemorates 106 martyrs of the Samyukta Maharashtra Movement in the 1950s, in south Mumbai and the ashes of the martyrs were immersed in the Arabian Sea off the Gateway of India in a special programme, said Ashok Dhawale of the SSKM.

Earlier last month, eight people were killed in the Lakhimpur Kheri violence in UP. Of the eight killed, four were farmers, who were allegedly knocked down by vehicles driven by BJP workers travelling to welcome Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya to an event in the area.

The other four were two BJP workers, a driver of Union Minister of State for Home Ajay Kumar Mishra and a journalist working for a private television channel.

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