Farmers at Punjab-Haryana Shambhu Border raise slogans during their protest over various demands, on Wednesday. (ANI Photo) |
Chandigarh: Tempers ran high among Punjab farmers and tension mounted at their protesting sites – Shambhu and Khanauri borders of Punjab and Haryana – after Punjab police detained several of farm leaders including Jagjit Singh Dallewal and Sarwan Singh Pandher, as they entered Punjab’s Mohali district, after attending the meeting with the Central ministers over their demands, here Wednesday evening.
There were also reports of minor clashes between the farmers and the Punjab police as the former tried to march towards the said protesting sites where the farmers had been camping since February 13 last year to press for their demands including minimum support price (MSP) and debt waiver. The farmers had begun to move towards the said barriers, apprehending that it was a strategy of the Punjab government to get the two borders vacated and after detaining their leaders and the police trying to stop them.
Pertinently, a large number of farmers apprehended the same even much before the meeting ended, noticing that the Punjab government had beefed up the police deployment there since Tuesday evening at farmers’ protest sites and even suspended the internet services in the villages located around Shambhu barrier.
However, when asked about the same, Punjab minister Cheema had – immediately after the meeting – held there were no plans to remove the protesting farmers from the two barriers.
Condemning the detentions of Dallewal and Pandher, the farm unions alleged that the Punjab government had committed to enforcing corporate and MNC framework in agriculture and it is for this that it is collaborating and cooperating with the RSS, BJP government at the Centre. It is rather sinister that this move has come after top AAP leaders had a meeting with industrialists yesterday, farm leaders’ statement said.
OPPON SLAMS AAP GOVT
Meanwhile, the opposition parties, Congress and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leaders assailed the chief minister Bhagwant Mann-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government for the detention of the farm leaders.
Congress state president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring condemned the detentions dubbing it as a cheating with the farmers and that they were betrayed and backstabbed. He alleged that the farmer leaders were arrested apparently to divert the public attention from the outrage over the brutal manhandling of a serving army colonel by 12 Punjab police cops in Patiala recently.
The SAD leader Bikram Singh Majithia alleged that it was a game-plan of the state government and BJP to first call the farm leaders for the meeting and subsequently detain them so as to open the two state borders.
