Chandigarh: Bracing themselves for the overnight chilly winds and rains, thousands of protesting farmers on Thursday gathered at various spots along the Haryana borders in Punjab in the midst of mounting tension.
They have been halted by the Haryana Police while moving towards the national capital for their ‘Delhi Chalo’ protest opposing the three Central farm laws.
A large contingent of police containing the Rapid Action Force has been sent to deal with any untoward situation. They attempted to evict farmers assembled since Wednesday evening.
Residents of many towns situated along the Punjab-Haryana borders faced a frightening time because of the heavy deployment of the security powers and snapping of the bus services in the previous 24 hours.
Farmers have swarmed streets and other open spaces. Many link roads entering Haryana have likewise been barricaded.
Unaffected by the heavy security deployment and barricading the highway with large heaps of earth and large rocks, a protesting farmer Gurdev Singh said to media at the Shambhu border close to Ambala city, “We will break all the barricades if we were not allowed to move ahead.”
Farmers said they were prepared to face even the bullets.
Section 144 of the CrPC has been enforced and the complete borders have been turned into a fortress.
A day sooner, farmers had large scuffles with the Haryana Police which failed to stop them from continuing further in spite of heavy deployment of men and utilization of water cannons.
The large scuffle between the farmers and the police broke out at the Shambhu border on the national highway when the farmers broke the barricades and managed to continue to Delhi for staging a demonstration.
In spite of the utilization of water cannons, the protesting farmers, including men and women – both young and old – and school and college students riding tractor-trailers, motorcycles and cars, managed to enter Haryana from Punjab.
They were later accompanied by thousands of their counterparts from Haryana, drove by Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) state chief Gurnam Singh Charuni.
As they arrived at the Kurukshetra district, the local farmers went along with them.
Charuni stated: “The police must release our activists and vehicles. We will march towards Delhi, breaking the barricades.”
The police had taken almost 100 farmer leaders from Haryana into “preventive custody”.
According to the police estimates, about 3,00,000 farmers from the two states are set to arrive at Delhi as a part of their ‘Delhi Chalo’ protest.
The farmers affiliated to 33 associations are part for the United Farmers Front, an all-India body of more than 470 farmers’ unions that will partake in the protest in the national capital from November 26.
Barred from entering Haryana, the heads of farmers’ associations declared that they will sit on ‘dharna’ at the Dabwali barrier between Bathinda and Sirsa regions for seven days.
BKU (Ugrahan) President Joginder Ugrahan stated: If we are not allowed to cross Haryana and head towards Delhi on Thursday, our protest destination will be the border points for a week.”
The Delhi Police has already requested the farmers not to enter Delhi as they don’t have the permission to protest in the city.
Farmers protesting the farm laws have communicated apprehension that these laws would make way for the dismantling of the minimum support price system, leaving them at the ‘mercy’ of big corporate entities.
source: with input from ians
