New Delhi/Chandigarh: Police fired tear gas and resorted to baton charge on Friday to break up a clash between farmers and a large group of men claiming to be local residents who hurled stones at each other at the Singhu border, one of the main protest sites against farm laws.
Delhi police SHO (Alipur) Pradeep Paliwal was injured in the violence after a man attacked him with a sword, an official said, adding that some people were also wounded.
The official said that police detained the man who attacked the station house officer.
The group claiming to be locals demanded that the farmers vacate the Singhu border, one of the main protest sites around the capital, alleging that they had “insulted” the national flag during their tractor parade on Republic Day.
Armed with sticks, the group reached the site and asked the farmers to leave while raising slogans against them. Both sides also pelted stones at each other. The protesters at the Singhu border, much of which is barred for entry from outside, came out in numbers to resist the locals.
However, they were promptly stopped by farmer union volunteers which helped the situation from turning ugly. “They are not locals, but hired goons. They were throwing stones, petrol bombs at us. They attempted to burn down our trolleys also. We are here to resist them. We won’t leave the place,” said Harkirat Mann Beniwal (21) from Punjab’s Khana district.
Farmer outfits on Friday started mobilising more batches of peasants from Haryana and Punjab to head towards Delhi’s borders to join the ongoing agitation against the farm laws, even as political parties such as the SAD and the INLD threw their weight behind them.
At some places in Haryana, including Jind, Hisar, Bhiwani and Rohtak, batches of peasants headed towards various border points of Delhi, their leaders claimed.
Many khap panchayats in Haryana held meetings and threw their weight behind the agitating farmers, a farmer leader of BKU (Chaduni) said.
He said that several villages have decided to send one or two tractor-trolleys to join the protesters.
The Shiromani Akali Dal on Friday gave a clarion call to its party cadre to “rush” to the three farmers’ protest sites on Delhi borders in large numbers to give a further boost to the ongoing agitation.
Congress leader Deepender Singh Hooda reached the Ghazipur border where he met Rakesh Tikait and expressed solidarity with the protesting farmers.
INLD senior leader Abhay Singh Chautala, who has resigned as MLA over the farm laws issue, said he will be going to the Ghazipur protest site on Saturday to express solidarity with Tikait and other farmers there.
Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh called for an “immediate end to the vilification campaign launched against farmers” in the wake of the Red Fort violence.
“What is happening and what happened at Singhu today is what Pakistan wants,” Singh said in a statement here, pointing out that he had been warning for a long time that Pakistan will try to exploit the unrest over the farm laws to disturb Punjab’s peace.
More batches of farmers will head towards the Singhu and Tikri border protest sites over the next few days, a farmer leader from BKU (Ugrahan) said.
