Farmers Movement Archive

Hisar police station still under siege, farmer hurt in ‘assault’

HISAR: The farmer unions’ siege of the Narnaund police station continued for the second day on Saturday after they broke two windscreens of Rajya Sabha MP Ramkumar Jangra’s car when he had come to lay the foundation stone of Jangra society’s Chaupal. The unions claim the flareup occured after someone from the MP’s convoy hit a farmer, Kuldeep Rana, 39, with the butt of a gun. They claim to have eyewitnesses of the incident as well. However, Hansi’s superintendent of police claimed the farmer had a bout of epilepsy. The farmer unions now want the police to cancel the FIR lodged against the farmers and book the MP and his guards instead, else they threatened to gherao the SP’s office on Monday. It has to be mentioned that there were several women present in the protest site. Former legislator Ram Bhagat and Indian National Lok Dal’s Umaid Lohan, Rajendra Sura, Rajbir Mor, and Satbir Sisai were there too. Commenting on the incident, farmer unionist Suresh Koth claimed it wasn’t epilepsy but the hit of a rifle butt that that had caused farmer Kuldeep to faint, and so it was a police case. He said: "Yes, he wasn’t injured in the cane charge but someone from the MP’s car hit him. His family will file a complaint." On the protest of Jangra society, Suresh Koth claimed that the government wanted to give a caste angle to the farmers’ agitation even though the participants had celebrated Chhotu Ram Jayanti, Vishwakarma Jayanti, and other festivals together. He said they were not opposed to any politician of a particular caste, but were against the BJP-JJP combine government. Meanwhile, Saroj Rana, wife of injured farmer Kuldeep Rana of Satrod Khas, said the police was claiming that her husband was a patient of epilepsy, but in reality he hadn’t taken even a headache pill in 20 years. She claimed that one of his veins had ruptured in the "police assault" and doctors had advised him not to speak for 72 hours. On the other hand, the Sanyukt Kisan Morch (SKM), which leads the farmers’ agitation, has demanded that BJP MP Ramkumar Jangra and his associates be booked for injuring protester Kuldeep Rana. It also wants the Narnaund cases against farmers Harshdeep Gill, Kailash and Sudhir to be scrapped as the injured farmers underwent a surgery and his condition continues to be critical. The SKM warned the BJP-JJP combine against using colleges and temples for its party activities. In Rohtak, they cordoned a Shiva temple of Kiloi village to confined a BJP group for several hours. Meanwhile, the antim ardas for three women protesters who died in October 28’s road accident at the protest side in Tikri will be at Mansa’s Kheva Dayalpura village on Sunday. A tipper truck crushed Amarjeet Kaur, Gurmail Kaur, and Sukhwinder Kaur and injured two other women, Harmeet Kaur and Gurmail Kaur, critically. The farmers claimed that the Punjab government’s compensation to their families was too small to even cover their debts. The SKM claimed continued shortage of DAP (diammonium phosphate) and other fertilisers, besides black marketing are making life tough for the farming community. Questioning the NCRB (National Crime Records Bureau) data about farm suicides, it claimed that Bihar, West Bengal, Uttarakhand, and Tripura could not have zero cases without data manipulation. It claimed that the figures for most states were suppressed and the data sources were not authentic.

The Times of India

2021-11-07

Gurgaon