Farmers Movement Archive

Kathua victim’s family counsel now brings comfort, food to the farmers

Advocate Mubeen Farooqui, who secured punishment for the accused in the gruesome Kathua gangrape and murder case, has been camping at the Capital’s borders and running a community kitchen for the protesting farmers for the past 12 days. In vehement agreement with their demands, Mr. Farooqui from Punjab’s Malerkotla arrived at the Singhu border with a team of 25 people and a large consignment of sweet rice hoping to “feed those who feed everyone else for a living”. Soon, he was joined by some locals from Haryana, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh. ‘Govt. forcing farmers’ “Farmers facing abject poverty needed their outstanding loans to be waived not new laws, which will, over the coming years, make them slaves of corporates. The government should have asked the farmers what they really need instead of forcing them to accept what it thinks they need,” Mr. Farooqui said. He also asked: “Our team came here to help ease the burden on those facing complete injustice. What can be a bigger service to God than feeding the farmer who feeds everyone else?” Tariq Manzoor Alam, who operates a real estate business in Malerkota and is one of Mr. Farooqui’s team members, said between 35 and 40 large pots of rice are pressed into service one after the other to serve langar to anyone who stops by their stall, which is among the busiest in a sea of similar ones stretching well into the territorial jurisdiction of Haryana. In June last year, Mr. Farooqui — representing the family of an eight-year-old Bakkarwal girl from Kathua, who was sexually assaulted and murdered in January 2018, — secured life imprisonment for three key accused and five-years’ imprisonment for three policemen from a District and Sessions Court in Pathankot. The policemen had allegedly tried to hush up the case. Justice in the Kathua case, especially the kind that the victim’s family deserved, he said, was still far from being done just like much was left wanting in the treatment meted out to farmers by the Centre. Next in Kathua case “We will move the Punjab and Haryana High Court for capital punishment in the Kathua case; that battle will continue. In the same way, we came here to stand with them [farmers] and will stay here till they leave,” he added.

The Hindu

2020-12-09

New Delhi