TRAINS HIT AS FARMERS BLOCK TRACKS
Train services were affected in several states on Thursday as the farmers gathered near the railway tracks in parts of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka for the “rail roko” protest against the three contreoversial agricultural laws. Around 25 trains were either cancelled, short terminated or
rerouted as farmers held their protest.
Saying they won’t return home till the three laws were repealed, BKU leader Rakesh Tikait said the farmers should be ready to sacrifice their standing crops. He said the government should not think the movement against the laws will end as the farmers will go back to harvest their crop.
“Even if you have to set your standing crops on
fire, you should be prepared for it. The government should not harbour this impression that the farmers will return home. We will harvest crops and continue our agitation at the same time,” said Mr Tikait, addressing a mahapanchayat at Hisar’s Kharak Poonia village. “There will be no ‘ghar wapsi’ till then,” he added.
The BKU leader also asked farmers to be ready
for the unions’ next call. “Keep your tractors filled with fuel and facing towards Delhi’s direction. You can get a call to move at any time, that will be decided by the committee (of farmers unions)”, he said.
Mr Tikait, who is now the face of the agitation, said after Haryana, they will hold panchayats in other parts of the nation, including West Bengal, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat. While earlier farmers had called a tractor rally in Delhi, the next time they will go to the national capital with their agricultural implements, he said.
Thursday’s “rail roko” protest was announced by the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), an umbrella body of farmers’ unions spearheading the agitation at Delhi’s borders for the past 85 days. The rail blockade was the third major protest by the farmers, after the Republic Day tractor rally and the “chakka jam” on February 6.
While several parties, including NCP, Congress and AAP, protested at Pune railway station, workers of Jan Adhikar Party (Loktantrik) turned up in large numbers at Patna Junction. Samajwadi legislators staged a protest outside the UP Assembly before the state budget session. Raising slogans against the BJP government, the SP MLAs sat before the statue of former PM and kisan leader Charan Singh, demanding that the new laws be repealed. A “kisan mahapanchayat” was also held in Rajasthan’s Sri Ganganagar district. During the “rail roko”, the farmers climbed on the locomotive of Gita Jayanti Express at Kurukshetra. The train was due to leave from there after 3 pm. There was commotion in Bengaluru as the police refused to allow the farmers to protest.
In Punjab, protesters sat on the tracks at many places on the Delhi-LudhianaAmritsar route. They also blocked the Jalandhar CanttJammu rail track in
Jalandhar and squatted on tracks at Mullanpur, Dakha and Jagraon on LudhianaFerozepur route. The railway tracks on the Bathinda-Delhi, Delhi-Amritsar and Amritsar-Tarn Taran routes were also blocked. BKU (Ekta Ugrahan) general secretary Sukhdev Singh Kokrikalan said the railway tracks were blocked at 22 places in the state.
In Haryana, protesters squatted on the tracks in Ambala, Kurukshetra, Panipat, Panchkula, Rohtak, Sonepat, Hisar and Fatehabad. In Jind, the tracks were blocked near Barsola village. A large number of protesters, including women carrying the tricolour in their hands, sat on the railway tracks at Yamunanagar.
In Sirsa too, farmers sat on the railway tracks. Carrying placards, some of which read “Kheti Bachao, Roti Bachao” in their hands, they raised slogans against the government and demanded the immediate repeal of the three farm laws.