Farmers Movement Archive

Farmer’s protest: After Tikait’s appeal, more people rush to Ghazipur site

More protesters began arriving at the Ghazipur farmer protest site from Uttarakhand, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, and Delhi hours after Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) leader Rakesh Tikait broke down during his address on Thursday and vowed not to leave the venue citing plans to arrest him.“We could not stop ourselves when we saw Rakeshji’s video in which he was crying and saying he will not have water or food. Our group immediately fetched water and started our journey. We drove about 300km and reached ...[the protest site] at 4 am [on Friday]...,” said Gagandeep Singh Guraya, a resident of Punjab’s Fatehgarh Sahib.“There was dense fog in Sonipat and Karnal and we even had to slow down our speed to about 5 kmph. For the rest of the distance, we drove at higher speeds... We will now stay here and will see to it that more people reach here, and the protest continues,” said Love Preet Singh, another member of the group.Also read | Farmers told to vacate protest sites in Haryana, UPAmrita Kundu, 32, said she saw Tikait’s video on Thursday in Delhi’s Nangloi and immediately told her husband that they should rush to Ghazipur. “I came here to offer him water and I was moved by his emotional appeal. I could not see him in tears and I along with my husband reached by 11pm. I offered water to Rakeshji and he had it. My father-in-law and even my 10-year-old son often go to the Singhu and Tikri protest sites as we are from a family of farmers from Kaithal, Haryana,” she said. Kundu added they celebrated her birthday and marriage anniversary at the protest sites this year.Ankit Chaudhary, another protester, said he rushed to the site with a 17-member group on a tractor from Muzaffarnagar after seeing Tikait’s video on social media. “We said enough is enough when we saw our leader in tears. ...he was in pain and trying to save the honour of farmers. So, we rushed in our tractor-trolley and 18 of us reached by 4 am. We will now stay here and will also call up our other friends to the site.”Prem Singh Sobta from Uttarakhand’s Udham Singh Nagar echoed Chaudhary. “We came in two of our cars and reached by midnight. I initially came here to attend the farmers’ tractor rally on Republic Day and left for home thereafter. But I again rushed back when I saw the video. A lot of people have reached and more will come on Friday. It will motivate the farmers who are continuing with their agitation.”Ranjeet Singh, a resident of Shahjahanpur, said they ran a community kitchen and about 50 of them were camping at the site. “We decided on Thursday to leave for Haridwar where we have another camp as there were apprehensions of police action and also that electricity and water supplies also got affected. But when we saw people coming in after the video went viral, we decided to stay back.”BSU leader Rajbir Singh said Friday will be a vital day as more people will come and join the protest. “There is also a Mahapanchayat call... and people from different districts will attend it.”Authorities issued an ultimatum to the protesting farmers to vacate the Ghazipur site as security forces dug trenches, put up barricades, and bolstered numbers at farmer protest sites on Delhi’s borders on Thursday two days after the violent Republic Day tractor rally. Farmers, primarily from western Uttar Pradesh, have been sitting in Ghazipur for about two months.Tikait was served a notice under section 133 of CrPC (conditional order for removal of the nuisance) for eviction from the site and he was also to be arrested. He remained defiant, saying there was no question of vacating Ghazipur and that police can do whatever they want. Tikait accused the government of trying to destroy farmers and warned if the three farm laws are not repealed, he will commit suicide. He broke down towards the end of his address to the protesters on Thursday.A large police contingent and protesting farmers were positioned on either side of the Delhi-Meerut Expressway when Tikait announced a hunger strike. With visuals of Tikait breaking down beamed on television, around 5,000 farmers gathered at his ancestral village of Sisauli, roughly 100km away, and threatened to march to Ghazipur.The number of people at the Ghazipur protest site had decreased to about 1,000-1,200 on Thursday as many people left it following the January 26 violence. Protesters said the declining numbers could have given authorities a chance to get the site vacated easily.The heavy deployment of police was relaxed when three buses carrying the provincial armed constabulary personnel left the site around 2 am on Friday.

Hindustan Times

29-01-2021

Delhi