Farmers dismantle their shelters at Delhi borders
Paras Singh, Sadia Akhtar and Peeyush Khandelwal
NEW DELHI: Tens of thousands of farmers began wrapping up tents and other makeshift structures at three protest sites on the national capital’s borders on Saturday as they headed home after yearlong protests against three contentious farm laws that have now been scrapped by the Centre.
Farmers took out a victory march, sang, danced and organised feasts as they started dismantling tents used for the protests, with some of them saying that the entire process to vacate the three areas – Singhu, Tikri and Ghazipur – could take up to three days.
After morning prayers and a victory march led by horsemounted Nihangs, the farmers camped at the Singhu border started retreating from the protest site on tractor-trolleys decorated with flowers amid blaring music. While Nihangs displayed martial art skills and a decorated bus carried the Guru Granth Sahib in front of the procession, several onlookers threw flower petals in their path.
A compromise between the Centre and protesting farm unions came after two days of back-channel negotiations that saw proposals being sent back and forth, and 11 rounds of tenuous negotiations that hit a deadlock on January 22. Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced on November 19 that his government was repealing the contentious laws and Parliament scrapped them on November 29.
At the Ghazipur border, another protest site of the farmers, the first group of farmers left on Saturday afternoon for different areas in Uttarakhand and western Uttar Pradesh. Bharatiya Kisan Union leader Rakesh Tikait said that the process to vacate the area will take up to three days. “I will leave the site by December 15,” he said.
To be sure, the three border roads where the farmers held sit-in protests are yet to open for vehicular movement. Even after most farmers vacate the streets by Sunday night or Monday, police teams from Delhi, UP, Haryana and other agencies will take some time to clear the roads. The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) will