Women from Punjab begin tractor march to protest sites

THE SAMYUKT KISAN MORCHA — AN UMBRELLA BODY OF OVER 40 FARMER GROUPS — ALLEGED THAT THE POLICE DETAINED A GROUP OF WOMEN FARMERS UNDER THE LEADERSHIP OF MANJEET KAUR DOBKA

NEW DELHI: To mark 100 days of the farmers’ protest and the upcoming International Women’s Day, scores of women farmers from Punjab on Friday began their tractor march from several districts to join the protesters at Tikri border.

“This is a historic movement, and we need to raise the issue of women farmers as well. We have called over 50,000 women from various districts of Punjab, including Bathinda, Barnala, Mansa, and Patiala, to march to Delhi borders. They will reach Tikri by Sunday night,” said farmer leader Harinder Bindu, 44, state president of BKU Ekta Ugrahan’s women wing.

The Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) — an umbrella body of over 40 farmer groups — alleged on Friday that the police detained a group of women farmers under the leadership of Manjeet Kaur Dobka while they were travelling from the Singhu border to Rakabganj gurdwara to spend the night there. The Delhi Police rejected the allegations as ‘fake news’.

Deputy commissioner of police (New Delhi) Eish Singhal in said that no such incident has happened in the area of Mandir Marg and that no person was detained in this context. “This type of fake news may be checked before circulating in order to prevent disharmony in society,” Singhal said.

Thousands of farmers from states such as Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh are camped at Delhi’s borders since November 27 to protest against the three farm laws, which were passed in the Parliament in September

Also, to mark the completion of 100 days of the ongoing agitation, SKM has planned to organise a five-hour blockade of the KMP (Kundli-Manesar-Palwal) expressway on Saturday. The outfit said it will observe Saturday as ”Black Day’.

In a separate note, the SKM’s legal panel also demanded a judicial inquiry into the violence in central Delhi on Republic Day.

Delhi Police have said that they have arrested farmers on the basis of video and photo evidence. On January 26, at least 500 police personnel and 10 farmers were injured after farmers clashed with police personnel, and stormed the Red Fort.