Farmers Movement Archive

Day on, farm front blocks railway tracks in Jandiala

Jandiala: Adamant on not allowing passenger trains to pass, Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee (KMSC) once again blocked the rail tracks at Jandiala in the wee hours of Tuesday, forcing the railways to divert trains to Amritsar via Tarn Taran and causing much inconvenience among passengers. The protest came just a day after rail services had resumed service in the state, after more than two months.Despite police barricades, KMSC activists, who had laid a protest near the railway station, moved to the rail track around 3am on Tuesday to block the movement of passenger trains. After this, civil and police administration officials, including Amritsar deputy commissioner Gurpreet Singh Khaira and Amritsar Rural senior superintendent of police (SSP) Dhruv Dahiya, reached the spot around 4am to persuade farmers, but to no avail. Khaira said he along with senior police officials, including inspector general of border range, had been holding meetings with the leaders of KMSC since Monday evening and trying to persuade them to allow the movement of goods and passenger trains. “But they didn’t agree, so we held discussions with the railways to find an alternate route for the train to reach Amritsar,” he said. The administration had also arranged buses to ferry passengers to Amritsar railway station form Beas railway station, where the Golden Temple Mail was stationed. The administration had no intention to use force to disperse the agitating farmers, especially when the situation was sensitive, said Khaira, when asked how farmers managed to cross the barricades and reach the rail track. The Golden Temple Mail, which left Mumbai with around 2,500 passengers reached Amritsar around 8.45am, three hours behind the scheduled arrival time of 5.30am. KMSC president Satnam Singh Pannu said their agitation would continue till the Centre repealed the controversial agricultural bills.

The Times of India

2020-11-25

Chandigarh