Farmers Movement Archive

Farmers’ ‘rail roko’ remains peaceful in Punjab, Haryana

During Thursday’s four-hour ‘rail roko’ agitation in several states on the call of the Sanyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), farmers occupied the tracks at 60 places in Punjab and several other spots in Haryana and Rajasthan. Farmers, who are protesting against the farm-marketing laws, stopped some trains from noon to 4pm. The train disruptions happened in Bathinda, Mansa, Barnala, Rampura, Maur, Moga, Nabha, Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Phagwara, Pathankot, Faridkot, Fatehgarh Sahib, and Handiaya in Punjab, besides Ambala, Gurgaon, Panipat, Jind, Rohtak, Gohana, Kurukshetra, Rewari, and Palwal in Haryana. The 30 farm unions engineered 40 rail blockades in Punjab. The BKU (Ekta-Ugrahan) single-handedly organised 22 of those in 14 districts. SKM’s Darshan Pal said ‘rail roko’ call had received a tremendous response across India, apart from Punjab and Haryana. “We have reports coming in from Behrampur, Parlekhamundi, and Cuttack in Odisha, Ranchi in Jharkhand, Patna and Shekhupura in Bihar, East Midnapore in West Bengal, Modinagar and Meerut in Uttar Pradesh, Vijaypura and Tumkur in Karnataka, Jaipur and Ajarka in Rajasthan, Aurangabad in Maharashtra, and Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh,” he claimed. BKU (Ekta-Ugrahan) general secretary Sukhdev Singh Kokri Kalan said, “We want the Narendra Modi government to repeal three contentious farm laws.” BKU (Dakaunda) vice-president Manjit Singh Dhaner and Kirti Kisan Union vice-president Rajinder Singh also claimed a good response to the ‘rail roko’. According to reports from Karnal, the SKM activists blocked the tracks at Gharaunda near the TDI Bridge in Panipat district, where women burnt the effigy of the Union government and raised slogans against it. The farmers were served langar on the tracks and motivated with folk songs. After the protest, they cleaned up the railway station and the tracks, amid a heavy police presence. The protest upset the schedule of six trains on the Delhi-Ambala section. The 25 trains that cross Panipat and Karnal every day haul 30,000-odd passengers. In Hisar, Fatehabad and Sirsa, protesters forced the cancellation of the Rewari-Shri Ganganagar special train. Kisan Sabha press secretary Sube Singh Boora told TOI, “Even the freight trains were not allowed to run. We jammed the Rajgarh railway line at Chirod and the lines going from Hisar to Bhiwani, Sirsa, and Jakhal.” In Sirsa, the railway tracks were blocked at four places while Fatehabad was cut off from Delhi. In Rohtak district, dharnas were staged at Ismaila and Lakhanmajra. Janwadi Mahila Samiti national vice-president Jagmati Sangwan said, “The ‘Kisan Andolan’ has become ‘Jan Andolan’. Every section of society has joined it.” Stone pelter caught in JindJind farmers occupied the tracks at Barsola village with women, led by Krishana Devi (70), in the forefront. The farmers caught someone who tried to pelt a train with stones just before the agitation began at noon. Sound systems were installed on train tracks and “ragini” was staged. The farmers were seen playing cards and smoking hukkah on the tracks. After the blockade, a team of five went to the railway station in-charge at Barsola, 3km from Khatkar toll plaza, to tell him that rail tracks had been cleared. The Barsola villagers maintained a steady supply of tea, food and water to the protesters. The women reached the site in 50 tractor-trailers and cited the civic election results in Punjab as the BJP’s impending fate in Haryana. Back from Tihar, Karnal farmer joins ‘rail roko’Arrested in Delhi for his alleged role in the Republic Day violence at the Red Fort, farmer Devender Singh of Karnal’s Peont village, joined the blockade at Gharaunda railway on Thursday. He reached the protest spot straight after his release on bail from the Tihar Jail and was given a warm welcome by the SKM activists. He told the media that he was just a gurdwara sewadar in Delhi’s Rohini area and that the Delhi Police had linked him with the Red Fort incident. Farm unionist Jagdeep Singh Aulakh of the BKU (Charuni) said, “Many farmers, such as Devender, were implicated. The truth will come out. We have trust in the Indian judiciary.”

The Times of India

2021-02-19

Chandigarh