Activist Mandeep Singh Manna urges farmers to end protest outside mall

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, November 13

The protest by farmer organisations at various areas of the district —Butari and Gehri Mandi railway station, outside the residence of BJP’s Rajya Sabha member Shwait Malik, at toll plazas and petrol pumps run by the Reliance Group — continues in the district.

The farm leaders said the protest would continue and they would observe ‘black Diwali’ this year as a mark of protest against the Union Government for three controversial agriculture related laws. Meanwhile, a local activist Mandeep Singh Manna has appealed to a group which has staged protest a local mall. Activists of the Lok Bhalai Insaaf Welfare Society, being run by Baldev Singh Sirsa, had initiated a protest outside the mall earlier last month even as protests were already going on at five different places.

Manna said out of the total 200 shops in the mall, only five are associated with the Reliance. He said shopkeepers and around 1,500 workers were in trouble since March as lockdown due to Covid-19 was announced.

“While other market places were opened due to protest outside the mall, the livelihood of shopkeepers and their workers is at stake,” said Manna, adding that he had also requested Baldev Singh Sirsa to lift the protest from outside the mall.