PROTESTING FARMERS LATHI-CHARGED, TEAR-GASSED BY COPS
Seven policemen were injured during protest
Farmers marching towards Delhi as part of the Bharatiya Kisan Union’s protest call over demands ranging from farm loan waiver to cut in fuel prices were stopped at the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border on Tuesday with police using water cannons to disperse them. Tear gas was also used to disperse the crowd.
New Delhi, Oct. 2: Farmers marching towards Delhi as part of the Bharatiya Kisan Union’s (BKU) protest call over demands ranging from farm loan waiver to cut in fuel prices, were stopped at the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border Tuesday with police using water cannons to disperse them.
The farmers, riding tractors and trolleys, broke barricades of the UP Police and then started proceeding towards the barricades put up by the Delhi Police, a senior police officer said.
Police had to use water cannons to disperse the protestors, who also indulged in sloganeering. Tear gas was also used to disperse the crowd.
The Delhi police had on Monday imposed prohibitory orders, anticipating law and order problems as thousands of BKU members are on a march from Haridwar to reach the national capital Tuesday.
Seven policemen, including an assistant commissioner of police, were injured as protesting farmers turned violent while trying to enter the city from Uttar Pradesh in defiance of prohibitory orders, Delhi Police claimed on Tuesday.
The police said it used only “minimum required force” to control the situation. Police said a section of protesters suddenly turned violent as the cops tried to persuade them not to break the barricades.
Police said they used 20 tear gas shells and water cannons to manage the crowd, adding it was “minimum required force.
Opposition parties put the blame on the Narendra Modi government for what they described as “brutal police action” against thousands of farmers marching towards the national capital, with the Congress alleging that the “Badshah of Delhi Sultanate was drunk with power”.