Farmers told to vacate protest sites in Hry, UP

ROHTAK/GURUGRAM/MEERUT: Police and local administrations started removing farmers from some of the protest sites in Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh on Thursday morning and vacated several toll plazas occupied by members of farm bodies demanding repeal of the three new agriculture laws.

Farmers across rural Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh held local maha-panchayats to discuss the future course of action on Thursday, deciding to intensify the protest after a few days. They blamed the government for the violence at Red Fort and Delhi’s ITO on Republic Day.

Late on Wednesday night, local police used mild force to remove protesting farmers from a highway in Bhagpat in western Uttar Pradesh. Farmer leaders alleged that police were harassing families of farm union leaders and protesting farmers in villages. At Ghazipur on Delhi border, the local administration snapped electricity and water supply to the protesting farmers and asked them to remove the blockade going on for the past two months. Ghaziabad district magistrate Ajay Shanker Pandey asked the farm leaders to vacate the site by Thursday night. “The district administration has asked protesters to vacate the dharna site by tonight,” said a district officer. “I will not vacate the place,” said BKU leader Rakesh Tikait. His supporters in Muzaffarnagar urged him to continue,

declaring that thousands of farmers would get themselves arrested if Tikait was taken into custody.

A small farmers’ group, which had started a dharna (sit-in) against three new agriculture reform laws at a college ground in the Bajna area of Mathura district on December 2, suspended their agitation on Thursday after talks with Mathura police and district administration officials.

Balwant Nambardar, head of Phogat Khap, along with four other farmers had a meeting with Bhiwani deputy commissioner, Jaibir Arya, and told him that they will not vacate the Kitlana toll plaza, where hundreds

of farmers have been protesting for over a month. “We will clear the toll plazas in the district after our top leaders call,” he said.

The farmers protesting at Masani village in Rewari have vacated their protest site and shifted to Shahjahanpur on the Haryana-rajasthan border in the neighbouring state’s territory. Rewari DC Yashendra Singh, said they have cleared the National highway 8, which connects Delhi to Jaipur, in their territory. The protest is continuing at Shahjahanpur on the Rajasthan side. Police cleared the Palwal protest site on the Kundlighaziabad-palwal expressway on Thursday morning.