Farmers in Punjab and Haryana on Monday held protests outside Food Corporation of India (FCI) offices and raised various demands, including a legal guarantee for the minimum support price. The protesters expressed anguish over the central government s decision to seek farmers land records for online payments to their accounts and demanded its immediate rollback. Bharti Kisan Union (Ekta Ugrahan) general secretary Sukhdev Singh Kokrikalan said his organisation gheraoed 34 FCI offices in 15 districts of Punjab. Protests were also held outside the central procurement agency at Chandigarh, Amritsar, Sangrur and Haryana s Kurukshetra and Sonipat. The protesters asked the Centre to give a legal guarantee on the MSP for their produce.
Bhartiya Kisan Union leader Rakesh Tikait on Monday threatened to start a farmers tractor agitation in Gujarat after Delhi, and said time has come to gherao the state capital Gandhinagar and also break barricades if needed. Talking to reporters outside the Sabarmati Ashram here, Tikait claimed farmers in Gujarat were unhappy and suffering. Hundreds of farmers have been camping at Delhi s borders since November last year against the Centre s three agriculture reform laws. They are demanding a repeal of the three laws along with a legal guarantee for Minimum Support Price (MSP) for their produce. The protesting farmers took out a tractor rally in Delhi on January 26.
The lawyer of actor-turned-activist Deep Sidhu in connection with January 26 violence, on Thursday, said his client is being made a scapegoat as he is a known face. Abhishek Gupta, appearing for Sidhu, told the court that There is a media trial going on. Sidhu was at the wrong place at the wrong time. The FIR says that people broke the gates and climbed the rampart at 12:30. He reached there after 2 pm. There was no violence on his urging. We have videos showing that he was helping the police and asking people to stop climbing the walls, Gupta added. Additional Sessions Judge Satish Kumar, who was the link judge today, adjourned the matter for April 8.
A Delhi court will hear the bail plea of Punjabi actor-turned-activist Deep Sidhu, accused of January 26 tractor rally violence, on April 8. On Wednesday, the Tis Hazari court had adjourned the hearing on the bail application filed by Sidhu after a jurisdictional issue arose. Sidhu, accused of allegedly inciting violence near the Red Fort on Republic Day, had moved his bail petition in the court on Tuesday. Police had arrested Sidhu on February 9. The names of Sidhu and others were included in the FIR registered in connection with the violence, Delhi Police had said earlier while adding that Sidhu was involved in the incident.
Amid the ongoing farmers protest against the three farm laws, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has extended the deployment of 93 companies of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) in the national capital till March 15 for law and order duties. The MHA has extended the deployment of 93 companies of CAPFs including Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Border Security Force (BSF), Indo-Tibetan Border Force (ITBP), Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) and Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) in Delhi till March 15, informed the ministry on Tuesday. Rest 20 companies of CRPF, BSF and CISF will be de-inducted after March 10, it added. On February 24, addressing a Kisan mahapanchayat in Rajasthan s Sikar, Rakesh Tikait had threatened the central government and said that if the three laws are not repealed, the farmers will gherao the Parliament with 40 lakh tractors.