Haryana security personnel lobbed teargas shells to disperse protesting farmers as they neared multi-layered barricades at the Shambhu border point between the state and neighbouring Punjab on Sunday.The teargas shells forced the farmers, some of whom had covered their faces and were wearing protective eyewear, to get back a few metres.
A group of 101 farmers resumed their foot march to Delhi from the Shambhu border, where they had been camping since their first attempt to march to the capital was foiled in February, to press their various demands, including a legal guarantee for minimum support price.
The Haryana Police beefed up the security architecture at the Shambhu border on Sunday. The Police have put up barricades and installed nails to stop farmers from heading towards the national capital. The farmers have started their march towards Delhi with full preparations. They have taken wet jute bags and parked water tankers on the road to defy tear gas shelling.
After an initial altercation between the police and protests over lack of permission to march towards Delhi, the Haryana Police shelled tear gas. The teargas shells forced the farmers, some of whom had covered their faces and were wearing protective eyewear, to get back a few metres. Some were seen covering the shells with wet jute bags.
Ahead of the march, farmer leader Sarwan Singh Pandher alleged that the AAP-led Punjab government is in alliance with the Centre and is working against them. Pandher questioned why media was being stopped at the protesting site.Some farmers had suffered injuries due to tear gas shells at the Punjab-Haryana Shambhu border on Friday.
Apart from legal guarantee for Minimum Support Price (MSP), the farmers are demanding a farm debt waiver, pension for farmers and farm labourers, no hike in electricity tariff, withdrawal of police cases (against farmers), and “justice” for the victims of the 2021 Lakhimpur Kheri violence.
Reinstatement of the Land Acquisition Act, 2013 and compensation to the families of farmers who died during the previous agitation in 2020-21 are also part of their demands.
