Scindia meets kin of slain Mandsaur farmers
Congress MP Jyotiraditya Scindia on Saturday met grieving families of farmers killed in police firing and lathicharge in Mandsaur in the first week of June.
Scindia had tried to meet the families on June 13, soon after the deaths, but had been denied permission and had been booked under section 151 of CrPC and was forced to turn back from Jaora town, some 40 km away from Mandsaur.
Farmers in Madhya Pradesh have been staging demonstrations since June 1 demanding better prices for their crops. As the protests turned violent, police resorted to lathi-charge and firing, killing six farmers in Mandasur on June 6. The incident sparked widespread violence in many parts of Madhya Pradesh.
Scindia who took part in the Congress protest at Khalghat in the afternoon left soon after the protest ended. His first halt was at the house of farmer Ghanshyam Dhakar at Barwan.
Talking to the media, he criticised chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and said that it was inhumane that police firing had made a 26-year-old woman a widow with a seven-year-old son and a one-and-half-month-old daughter.
Scindia consoled the family and said the party was with them and they would fight for the justice of farmers. A 60-year old farmer allegedly committed suicide on Sunday by hanging self from the branch of a tree in his field in Neemuch district , taking the total number of agriculture-related suicides in MP to 13 since June 6 protests in Mandsaur.
Hitesh Patil, town inspector (TI) Neemuch city said the body of the farmer was sent for post mortem. “We have started investigation into why this farmer hanged himself in his field”, he said.