Farmers Movement Archive

Stricter checks at Delhi’s interstate borders lead to traffic chaos

Heightened checking at Delhi’s borders, to prevent agitating farmers from entering the national capital, resulted in huge jams and confusion among motorists crossing state lines throughout Thursday even as stray group of farmers managed to reach Delhi and were detained. The situation was the worst at Singhu border (connects Haryana’s Sonepat with Delhi’s Narela) after the local police shut the border for nearly three hours in the evening. The farmers from Punjab and Haryana were scheduled to reach Delhi on Thursday via several highways for a two-day protest named “Delhi Chalo”. The protesters are demanding that the Central government revert the implementation of the three new farm laws that, they allege, will harm the interests of farmers across the country. The Delhi Police on Wednesday had refused permission to farmers’ organisations to protest in Delhi on Thursday and Friday.On Thursday, motorists complained of being stuck in slow-moving traffic near the borders for hours, and many took to Twitter to bombard the Delhi traffic police with queries about road closures and restrictions. But Taj Hassan, special commissioner of police (Delhi traffic police), said the only road that was completely shut on Thursday was the Singhu border near Narela. “We diverted traffic towards the Ring Road and the Signature Bridge. All closures are being made at the discretion of the local police,” he said. Gaurav Sharma, deputy commissioner of police (outer-north), under whose jurisdiction the Singhu border comes, said there were inputs from the Haryana Police that protesters were marching towards Delhi. “So we closed both carriageways of the border road from 4.30pm to 7pm,” Sharma said.Other highways leading to Delhi also saw traffic move at a snail’s pace even as police maintained that they were only carrying out “strict checking” and not closing any road. “The traffic was slow on the DND Flyway (Delhi-Noida) in the morning due to heightened checking. The Ghazipur border (Delhi-Ghaziabad) and Chilla border (Delhi-Noida) were not so affected,” Jasmeet Singh, DCP (east), said. Ingit Pratap Singh, DCP (south-west), admitted that while checking at the Rajokri and Mahipalpur borders (both connect Delhi with Gurugram) did slow down traffic, the roads were not closed even once the whole day.Unless the protest march by the farmers is called off overnight, the situation could be quite similar or even worse on Friday, the traffic police has warned. It has advised motorists to avoid roads such as Outer Ring Road, Mukarba Chowk, GTK Road, NH-44 and Singhu border. Commuters to and from Noida were also caught in slow-moving traffic on Thursday. “ It took me half an hour to cross the Chilla (Noida-Mayur Vihar) border. There were barricades set up on both Delhi and Noida sides and there was a lot of checking,” said Sadhna Gupta, a Noida resident travelling to Mayur Vihar Phase 3 for work.In Ghaziabad, there was heavy deployment of personnel and administration officials at the UP Gate border with Delhi where commuters faced traffic snarls from about 11am till about 2.30pm. Commuters said the police had allowed vehicles to move via the Hindon canal over-bridge on NH-9 but no vehicle was allowed on the road below the UP Gate flyover. “Many commuters used the over-bridge to move to Delhi. Below the UP Gate flyover, the Ghaziabad traffic police had put up barricading for checks and that resulted in traffic bunching up,” said Kuldeep Saxena, resident of Shakti Khand, Indirapuram. Sporadic protests in Delhi There were sporadic protests by farmers in Delhi on Thursday and the police responded by registering cases in some of these incidents. Eish Singhal, deputy commissioner of police (New Delhi), said that 70 farmers and political activists were detained from Jantar Mantar and later let off. “We have registered a case under the IPC Section 188 (disobedience to an order),” Singhal said. A group of 35 farmers were detained near Majnu Ka Tilla. NS Bundela, joint commissioner of police (central range), said, “They had arrived by public transport. We booked them for violating Covid-19 protocols.” Delhi police commissioner SN Shrivastava also made a tour of boder areas to review the situation. He said, “We have requested the farmer groups not to enter Delhi and if despite that they enter Delhi, we have our force deployed and prepared. We are in regular touch with our counterparts in Haryana and Punjab for updates. Since they have blocked the national highways there will be some problems which we will try to sort it out as soon as possible.” Protest low-key in NCR cities The protest against farm laws remained low-key in Gurugram when compared to areas bordering Punjab, as a majority of protesters mobilised by farmer unions in south Haryana were prevented by the police from reaching Panchgaon and Gurugram. Activists, including Swaraj India convener Yogendra Yadav, and farmer leaders were taken into preventive custody on Thursday morning when they tried to move towards Delhi to participate in the ”Delhi Chalo” protest. Addressing the media at Rathiwas, Yadav said, “Farmers across the country are united and they stand with protesters from Punjab who are spearheading the movement to save agriculture. Repressive measures are being taken in Punjab, Uttarakhand and particularly Haryana to deprive farmers of their constitutional rights,” he said. In Greater Noida’s Pari Chowk, a group of 30 farmers from the Bhartiya Kisan Union was stopped while trying to get to Delhi. “We assembled at the zero point and before we could start moving to Delhi, we were detained and taken to the DCP office,” said Rajkumar Roopwas, tehsil president, BKU. A group of about 25-30 farmers in the afternoon tried to move to UP Gate but were held back by police at Mohan Nagar. The traffic police officials said that checking points were also set up on the Hindon elevated road to scan vehicles for movement of farmers.

Hindustan Times

27-11-2020

Delhi