Farmers Movement Archive

Road occupied by farmers at Tikri border cut off from residential lanes

The main road towards Haryana’s Bahadurgarh, which has been occupied by agitating farmers at the Tikri border, has now been cut off from all nearby residential lanes with police-manned barricades even as security arrangements leading to it are being fortified further. While access to the protest site was regulated earlier too, attempts to this end were limited to the periphery of the site and not a bustling market right in the middle of it to ensure that only one person can enter or exit the main market area at a time. Though razor mesh wire fencing is limited to a small patch of land behind the immediate protest site, large metallic frames resting on heavy trucks have been procured to prevent vehicular movement towards the national capital. “They have blocked our entry into any lane connected to the protest site. Police have asked us not to go to the market in groups,” said Harmeet Sandhu from Punjab’s Moga. More earthmoving machines are now stationed next to police riot control vehicles at a little distance from where agitating farmers have erected a stage on the main road and concrete slabs have been installed in the middle of the local market to control access to it under the eyes of police personnel. Residents complained they have to walk over a kilometre through a dirt road around the restrictions to be able to reach Rohtak Road, where the police have stepped up deployment since January 26, and more DTC buses and concrete barriers have been installed to block access towards Delhi near the Tikri border metro station. “There is much more police presence in the area after what happened on January 26,” said a local resident requesting anonymity. “Policemen have been stationed at the entrances of all the lanes where barricades cannot be put or won’t fit,” he also said. Not just entry to the vicinity of the protest site, local residents are, they complained, not allowed to exit the area except from one point – a dirty road ostensibly serving as a parking lot for small goods and passenger carriers behind a slum on the main road. “Things were already inconvenient for us since the farmers came but they have gotten more inconvenient since what happened on Republic Day. Elderly residents cannot walk as much as needed to go to the main road and vehicles from outside will cause a jam if they enter the bylanes,” said Hari Shankar Sharma, a local shopkeeper who stays on rent in the area with his family.

The Hindu

2021-02-04

New Delhi