Farmers Movement Archive

Barriers removed from farmers’ protest sites

“As the service lane leads to farmers’ camps, we felt their safe stay is more important than the stage.” The ACP said the Delhi Police had done its part and now it was up to the Uttar Pradesh Police to ensure the movement of traffic from U.P. to Delhi. Sources in the U.P. Police said they were waiting for orders from higher authorities. The process that started at 7 a.m. took almost the entire day for two cranes and two bulldozers to cut through the concrete slabs. Rashid, a worker, said as the barricades were welded, it consumed a lot of time to separate them. Earlier, BKU national spokesperson Rakesh Tikait, who was not present at the border on Friday, told a news agency that after the removal of barricades, farmers would move to Parliament where the contentious farm laws were passed. His nephew Gaurav Tikait said farmers were ready for any eventuality. “Farmers from West U.P. have been told to be ready to reach Ghazipur border at a short notice,” he said, adding they were waiting for the SKM’s directive to move towards Delhi. On farmers still holding up traffic on three lanes on the Delhi-Meerut Expressway, Rajveer Singh, State vice-president of the BKU said, “We are not looking for a confrontation. Dialogue is the only way out and I hope the government will reach out to us. There is still a month for the next date in the top court,” he said. At the Tikri border, the police started removing the layers of barbed wire on Thursday and the process was still under way on Friday. No barricades have so far been removed from the Singhu border, police said.

The Hindu

2021-10-30

October 30 2021 00:00 IST