Farmers Movement Archive

Pressure on protesting farmers to move out

Thousands of farmers were engaged in a stand-off with the Uttar Pradesh police on the Ghazipur border on Thursday evening. The Ghaziabad administration had issued an ultimatum that if the protesters do not leave by midnight, they will be removed forcibly. An emotional Rakesh Tikait, leader of one faction of the Bharatiya Kisan Union, declared that “if the black laws were not taken back and he was forcibly removed from the site, he would end his life.” Electricity and water supply to the protest site were cut earlier in the day, and local residents, who unions say are being incited by local BJP leaders, have been demanding that they clear the road. On Thursday morning, hundreds of farmers, mostly from Madhya Pradesh, were forced to leave their sit-in site at Palwal on the Delhi-Agra Highway after the Haryana police served them notices with regard to the violence on Republic Day. Union leaders say they also faced pressure from villagers mobilised by BJP activists. The two largest protest sites, at Tikri and Singhu on the Haryana border, saw an increased deployment of security forces. A group of people, claiming to be residents of nearby villages, staged a demonstration against the agitation at Singhu, demanding that the inter-State highway be cleared. They said their commute was affected by the agitation and also accused the protesting farmers of disrespecting the tricolour at Red Fort on Republic Day. (With inputs from Anuj Kumar, Shinjini Ghosh, Ashok Kumar and Priscilla Jebaraj and Saurabh Trivedi)

The Hindu

2021-01-29

January 29 2021 00:00 IST