Farmers work out details of march in meeting with cops
NEW DELHI: Police on Saturday gave “in principle” approval to farmers protesting at Delhi’s borders to carry out their proposed 100km “tractor march” on specific routes inside the Capital city on Republic Day, in a development that comes days after the Supreme Court refused to issue directions over the matter.
A police officer privy to the details said the protesters will have to give a signed undertaking that they won’t enter the New Delhi and central Delhi areas and disrupt the Republic Day arrangements.
“The proposed routes will be in the vicinity of places where the farmers are already protesting, but within the national capital. They will also have to give an undertaking that the rally will not disrupt the Republic Day arrangements,” said the police officer. Other conditions to be followed include being escorted by the police. Police will verify the undertaking and issue a written permission, said the officer.
According to farmer leaders, the routes for the rally will be decided by the farm unions protesting against the new agriculture laws. Yogendra Yadav of Swaraj Abhiyan said farmers will enter Delhi from the five existing protesting sites. “It will be historic,” he said.
On Monday, the Supreme Court declined to pass an order on a plea to stop the rally and said it wasn’t for the court to decide on policing power.
The Sonepat police on Saturday gave a clean chit to a man detained by farmers agitating at Singhu borders the previous day, for allegedly attempting to enginer violence at their protest site or during the upcoming tractor rally on Republic Day, as senior police officers claimed the man had made “false statements” before the media.
Addressing a press conference on Saturday, Sonepat superintendent of police Jashandeep Randhawa said the force had formed a three-member team of senior officials to investigate the matter.
“During investigations, the arrested man, Yogesh, said he had made false statements before the media on Friday night. A medical examination found injury marks on his back side. The man claimed he had made incorrect statements due to farmers’ pressure, and alleged that the protesters had thrashed him. The investigating team found that the youth had no intention of triggering violence at the protest site and farmers’ tractor parade on Republic Day,” he added.
Kulwant Singh Sandhu, general secretary of Jamhuri Kisan Sabha in Punjab, said, “What else can we expect from the police when that person himself had said that he was sent by a Haryana police official? We will discuss this matter on Sunday and raise it with the police.”
In a video message, the man’s mother said her son had left the house on January 20 and had not returned home since.
“In the early hours of Saturday, the police came to my house and took away his father. My son is unemployed, and I don’t know why the police arrested him. He can’t incite violence,” she added.
The farmers had on Friday presented the man detained by them, who said he and “dozens of other men and women” were attempting to bring weapons into the site to kill multiple people. The man, who was masked, did not identify at whose behest he was working but said his handlers had told the group “that the protesters were bad people, fighting for the wrong cause and are our enemies.”
The press conference, held late on Friday, was soon interrupted with some men seemingly in police uniform taking the masked man away.
We will discuss this matter on Sunday and raise it with the police. KULWANT SINGH SANDHU, general secretary, Jamhuri Kisan Sabha in Punjab