Farmers Movement Archive

Tens of thousands of farmers bring west UP to a halt

MEERUT/BAREILLY/AGRA: Tens of thousands of farmers in western Uttar Pradesh took to streets on Friday, blocked highways and held sit-ins at hundreds of locations across districts to register their protests against the farm bills. Although large contingents of police and paramilitary forces were deployed throughout the region, traffic was hit on highways, like the Delhi-Dehradun highway, as farmers not only blocked some stretches with hundreds of tractors but many of them even cooked food on the roads leading to long jams. The under-construction Delhi-Meerut Expressway was also blocked with farmers holding sit-ins. Spearheaded by the Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) in western UP, the agitation was also joined by dozens of other outfits. No violence was reported during the four-hour protests. In agriculture-rich Bijnor, farmers blocked traffic at 75 places while in Shamli, the BKU-led agitation witnessed blockade at eight places. In Muzaffarnagar, protests were held at ten crossings. In Baghpat, which shares border with Haryana, life came to a standstill as farmers laid siege to every crossing in the district for four hours and shouted anti-government slogans. Over two dozen BKU activists were detained in Agra when they tried to block roads in the region. Nonetheless, strong protests were witnessed in the district as well as Mathura, Firozabad, Etah, Kasganj, Mainpuri and Aligarh. In Rampur district, thousands of Sikh farmers on tractors took out a massive procession and later blocked the highway in Bilaspur town. The protest was led by VM Singh, convener of the All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee. He said, “Incompetent policies of the ruling party have ruined the lives of the farmers and they need to make laws from farmers’ perspective.” Similar protests were witnessed in Pilibhit, Lakhimpur Kheri and Shahjahanpur, where farmers blocked the National Highway 24. Rakesh Tikait, national spokesperson of BKU, said, “These farm bills are anti-farmer and will discourage them to sell their produce in mandis directly, benefitting corporates and middlemen. This will certainly break the backbone of the farmer. The central government has failed the country’s farmers. It'll take just two years for the mandis to be destroyed completely.” Meerut inspector general Praveen Kumar said, “The protests were overall peaceful. In fact, policemen engaged in dialogues with protesting farmers wherever blockade had led to traffic jams and persuaded them to lift the blockades. No untoward incident occurred in the region.”

The Times of India

2020-09-26

Bareilly