COURTESY HT NOV 26

Tension in air as farmer march to Capital halted

Farmers break past police barricades while marching towards Delhi, in Ambala on Wednesday. HT
HT Correspondents

letters@hindustantimes.com

New Delhi/Chandigarh : Delhi Police have upped their guard and bolstered security at the city’s borders with Haryana and Uttar Pradesh in an attempt to stonewall a massive demonstration by farmers who are marching to the national capital against three contentious laws enacted recently by Parliament to liberalise the farm sector, according to officials.

About 200 farmers’ unions have called for a two-day protest in Delhi beginning Thursday, putting the city’s administration on alert over potential law and order issues and a traffic nightmare, and prompting it to announce that any such gathering in the national capital will attract legal action.

On Wednesday, high drama unfolded in neighbouring Haryana, where authorities put up blockades on Punjab’s borders to stop farmers coming from that state. While the move worked to some extent, farmers within Haryana challenged law enforcement officials, used tractors to demolish multi-layer barricades on highways and continued their march towards the Capital.

Eish Singhal, deputy commissioner of police (New Delhi), said that all requests received from farmers’ organisations to hold protests have been rejected and that they have been informed about the decision. “Please co-operate with Delhi Police in ensuring no gathering in Delhi amid Coronavirus, failing which legal action will be taken,” Singhal said on Twitter. He said that additional police and paramilitary forces have been deployed in districts that share borders with Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, and in New Delhi district.

Jantar Mantar, which is the city’s protest venue, is in the New Delhi district. Ten of 15 territorial police districts share borders with either Haryana or UP or both. “We have also begun a special checking of vehicles and people entering the city,” Singhal said. “We have warned them (protesters) over the phone, we have warned them on social media. If they still enter, they should be ready to face the law.”

District deputy commissioners of police are camping at border points, where anti-riot measures are in place and crowd control vehicles have been deployed. Metro train services on several corridors will be restricted during the first half of Thursday. The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation has decided to stop regular services between several stations on six of its corridors.

As tension hung in the air in Delhi, Haryana’s Ambala turned out to be the epicentre of a confrontation between police and the protesters. Despite appeals to withdraw their “Delhi Chalo” call, farmers gathered in large numbers near the a grain market in Ambala Cantonment on the national highway. The farmers, led by Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) leader Gurnam Singh Charuni, hit the roads with tractors, cars and bikes that carried ration and tents. Officials used water cannons when they managed to break the barricades at Ambala.

Ambala SP Rajesh Kalia accused the farmers of posing a law and order challenge. “They resorted to stone-pelting...they tried to hit the police with their speeding vehicles and run over the police...we will lodge an FIR against them,” he said, even as the farmers marched towards Kurukshetra. Attempts by the police to stop the farmers failed in Kurukshetra as well, even though officials installed barricades and used water cannons.

“We are farmers and we do not have any plan or strategy, but we will not clash with the police and will continue our march peacefully”, said BKU state president Charuni.

Later at night, the farmers stopped their cavalcade near Samana Bahu village in Karnal district and announced that they will resume their march on Thursday morning. With the police diverting traffic, there was a long traffic jam on the National Highway 44.

Meanwhile, the district administrations of Kurukshetra and Kaithal districts blocked Haryana’s borders to halt farmers from Punjab. Farmers who were stopped in their tracks said they did not want any confrontation but will carry on with their protest. Farmers’ groups announced that they will sit on a dharna at the inter-state border for a week.

“We don’t want a confrontation. Our aim is to oppose the Centre’s farm laws...If we get public support, the duration of the dharnas may be increased,” BKU (Ugrahan) president Joginder Singh Ugrahan said.

In a related development, the Punjab and Haryana high court on Wednesday said that in view of losses suffered by railways and Punjab, it would be forced to pass harsh orders against those blocking rail tracks.

Food bowl Punjab is at the centre stage of a farmers’ agitation against moves to open up agricultural markets in the country and bring sweeping reforms to the farm sector, which supports nearly half the population. Farmers have demanded a repeal of three laws enacted by Parliament in September which, together, allow agribusinesses to freely trade farm produce without restrictions, permit private traders to stockpile large quantities of essential commodities for future sales and lay down new rules for contract farming.

Farmers say the reforms would make them vulnerable to exploitation by big corporations, erode their bargaining power and weaken the government’s minimum support price (MSP) system.

Agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar and railways, food and consumer affairs minister Piyush Goyal held day-long negotiations on November 13 with leaders of several farmers’ groups in attempt to end over two months of a politically challenging agitation. The discussions were inconclusive, but both sides had agreed to continue negotiations in the future