Supply cut, over 3,000 farmers trek 100km with water For the past one week, the protesters at Ghazipur have been fetching water in cans from the neighbourhood on their tractors
Over 3,000 farmers from 36 villages in Bulandshahr district began a march on foot towards the Ghazipur border on Wednesday afternoon, many of them carrying water in steel urns on their heads.
The farmers said they were taking drinking water to the dharna site on the Uttar Pradesh-Delhi border because the Yogi Adityanath government had suspended water supply to the area to pressure the protesters into leaving.
For the past one week, the protesting farmers at Ghazipur have been fetching water in cans from the neighbourhood on their tractors.
Thousands of Indian farmers marched overnight to reinforce protesting colleagues camping out on the outskirts of the capital, New Delhi, to press the government to withdraw three new farm laws they say will hurt their livelihoods.
In a standoff between riot police and the farmers, authorities on Thursday tried to clear a protest site at Ghazipur in the city’s east but most farmers refused to move and their leaders said any retreat would constitute surrender.
“Concerned over police high-handedness, thousands of farmers, who were not part of the protest, have now come to bolster our movement,” Rakesh Tikait, president of one of the largest farmers unions, the Bharatiya Kisan Union, told Reuters news agency on Friday.
Economy > Economy - general
Violent tractor rally leaves 300 police personnel injured
28 January 2021
At least 300 police personnel were injures in the violence let loose by protestors in the name of tractor rally in the national capital on Republic Day. Protestors targeted police with sticks and other crude weapons and even tried to run over them with their tractors.
Clashes broke out at several places, including Red Fort and ITO, Mukarba Chowk, Nangloi and other areas as protestors removed all barricades to enter uncharted routes in defiance of authority.
The Delhi Police have arrested 200 people in connection with the violence, and 22 FIRs have been filed so far. Police have also detained over 300 people in connection with Tuesday’s violence at several places in Delhi.
Two days after a violent protest by farmers on Republic Day, the Delhi Police today intensified its crackdown on the farm leaders and sent lookout notices for those named in the first information report (FIR). They also handed the investigation to a special cell to probe the conspiracy and criminal design behind the incidents. The farmer leaders, meanwhile, vowed to continue with their agitation, peacefully, demanding the repeal of the farm Acts. Eyewitnesses said an eerie silence prevailed in several protest sites as farmers in some places have started returning to their villages. At Ghazipur, one of the main protest venues on the Uttar Pradesh-Delhi border, Bhartiya Kisan Union (Tikait) leader Rakesh Tikait, in a statement, demanded magisterial inquiry into the incident at Red Fort, while resolving to continue with the agitation peacefully.
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1 Farmers during their ongoing protest against the Centre s new farm laws at the Ghazipur border in New Delhi, on Wednesday, January 27, 2021. PTI
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, January 27
In an aftermath of the Red Fort siege and violence on capital’s roads during the tractor parade on Tuesday, divisions surfaced in the farm unions’ camp on Wednesday with the All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee and the BKU (Bhanu) quitting the ongoing protests and announcing their own plans to struggle for justice.
AIKSCC chief VM Singh and BKU Bhanu’s Bhanu Pratap Singh today addressed a press conference to announce that their organisations were withdrawing from the ongoing farmers’ protests which had lost the legitimacy and the moral authority to continue after what happened yesterday.