BATHINDA: Over a dozen farmers from Mandi Kalan village in Punjab’s Bathinda district have been sleeping in the yet-to-be completed electric crematorium within the cremation ground at Bahadurgarh for nearly a week now.
With no space available in tractor-trolleys and constant rain making sleeping difficult in tents or even in open, this group of protesters had to look for some covered space to spend nights and zeroed in on the electric crematorium that is still not functional.
“We found this hall within the premises of the Bahadurgarh cremation ground. The caretaker was not ready to allow us inside and asked us to contact the managing committee. We talked to the committee members and apprised them of problems we were facing due to rains. ,” Balraj Singh Baja, a farmer from Mandi Kalan village told TOI.
Farm group has now got used to encountering bodies
Baja added, "At that, the committee directed the caretaker to allow us to sleep inside the newlyconstructed electric crematorium, which is still not functional,” Balraj Singh Baja. He also heads the Mandi Kalan village unit of BKU Ekta Sidhupur.
The group has now got used to encountering bodies being brought for traditional open-air cremation at the ground. They also came across a body being taken for cremation as they left the electric crematorium hall on Saturday morning. Initially, two youngsters in the group were scared of sleeping in the crematorium and left to try their luck at some other place at the protest site. “Initially, two young farmers from our village were scared to sleep here and they left. However, after just two days of trying to create space in the tractortrolleys parked on the road, they came back and started sleeping inside the hall,” another farmer from the village, Surjit Singh Dhillon, said.
Baja said the farmers have been at the Delhi borders since more than one and a-half months, but the Union government is unmoved. “If we had allowed ourselves to get scared to sleeping at the crematorium, we would be unable to fight the mighty and resourceful government,” he said, when asked whether the group was scared of sleeping at such a place.
The group said they were not scared of the dead but were more fearful of the contentious agri laws imposed on them, which could turn them into paupers. They have not been able to make any alternate sleeping arrangements till now even as the electric crematorium is expected to be made functional soon.