Farmers Movement Archive

Border residents fume, fear harassment by central force

Tribune News ServiceAmritsar, October 14Residents of the border areas are angry at the Centre’s move to empower the BSF to conduct raids and arrests up to an area of 50 km inside from the International Border (IB).They say the BSF’s interference would end up harassing them unnecessarily and hampering their work.Border Area Sangharsh Committee general secretary Rattan Singh Randhawa said they would stage a massive protest across the state shortly. “The BSF is concentrated near the border fence. How will they know about the nexus prevailing in the local areas? This can only be busted by the police,” he said.From Ajnala border, Satnam Singh Ajnala, who is also the state president of Jamhoori Kisan Sabha, said it was the Centre’s move to rob the state of its governing rights and it was in retaliation for the success and pressure of the farmers’ agitation at Delhi borders against the three farm laws. “Punjabis are deliberately being targeted for their active involvement in farm agitation,” Ajnala said.Kuljeet Singh, an advocate from border village Malawali, said it had nothing to do with curbing the influx of contraband from across the border, but a political game to defunct the state governance and impose a replica of “Governor Raj” in an indirect way.“Border residents will be the worst sufferers. They were earlier harassed and accused of running illegal human trafficking syndicates after the BSF had spread misinformation and incorrect allegations of bonded labourers working in their fields. Under the guise of BSF, it is the Centre’s political move to deviate Punjabis to weaken the ongoing agitation,” he added.

The Tribune

2021-10-15