Farmers Movement Archive

Why argument that police are to blame for farmer blockade doesn’t hold water

NEW DELHI: The argument of farmers’ unions that roads are not blocked by protesters agitating against the three new agri-marketing laws does not hold ground at Delhi borders as their presence in huge numbers spills on both sides of the highways, mainly at their biggest protest site Singhu. The Singhu road has been completely narrowed for nearly five kilometres. The barricades, as flagged by the unions, have indeed been used by the police, blocking the main road, but they had come up like a fortress only after the Republic Day incident. The blocked area at Singhu is being used for deployment of additional security personnel. As a result, commuters now have to take a long detour through Singhu village creating chaos in residential areas. Once they enter the stretch on the highways at Singhu, they have to face congestion till Kundli as farmers’ tents and tractors/trolleys occupy the space along the roads. Similar scenes can be witnessed at two other protest sites, Ghazipur and Tikri Borders, with lesser congestion. All those who have been visiting the protest sites in the past over 10 months can notice the change post the Republic Day incident when thousands of farmers travelled to the Capital violating the approved routes with hundreds of them even entering the Red Fort. Though the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) — the joint platform of unions agitating for repeal of farm laws — as a group did not attend the proceedings of the Supreme Court on Thursday when a PIL on road blockade came up for hearing, few farmer organisations including Yogendra Yadav-led Jai Kisan Andolan, BKU (Rajewal) and others, who received notice from the apex court, were represented by their lawyers. As these organisations argued in the court that the roads were actually blocked by police, BKU (Tikait) leader Rakesh Tikait later told reporters at the Gazipur protest site that there was no need for them to leave the ‘morcha (protests)’ as they were not on roads obstructing any traffic. “We have not blocked the road. There were only curtains which were removed... You can see that the barricades were put out by police. They should remove those barricades. We are here and we will remain here,” said Tikait when asked about the SC observation. The SKM, meanwhile, in a fresh call for action, put out an all-India call for protest ‘dharnas’ across the country on October 26 to press for its demand of sacking and arrest of minister of state for home affairs Ajay Mishra in connection with the Lakhimpur Kheri incident, and to mark the completion of 11 months of farmers’ protests at Delhi Borders.

The Times of India

2021-10-22

Delhi