JALANDHAR: Hardeep Singh Dibdiba, grandfather of young farmer Navreet Singh who was killed during tractor parade in Delhi on January 26, has urged the farm union leaders to strongly raise the issue of violence inflicted on farmers by the Delhi Police, of which his grandson became a victim.
“Farm leaders showed weakness and apparently got carried away by the false narrative set by the government. They should now speak out on the violence inflicted on farmers who entered Delhi and push the issue into centre stage to seek justice. The government indulged in false propaganda and ‘aggressors’ played the victim card to defame our movement,” he said.
Dibdiba made the same allegations at memorial functions held at Gurdwara Charan Kanwal, Banga, on Monday and at Gurdwara Bauli Sahib at village Nadala on Tuesday.
“We have been absolutely clear from the very beginning that Navreet was hit by a bullet but now analysis of the post-mortem report and video of Navreet’s face by a top expert of UK has also confirmed that he had bullet wound,” he said, referring to Dr Basil Purdue, a pathologist registered with the UK Home Office, who according to a report by The Guardian after examining the video footage and post-mortem report said that this was a gunshot wound, possibly two, unless proved otherwise. He was also quoted saying that it was extremely implausible that Navreet died from an overturned tractor and one could not get these injuries from a fall.
“Heavens had not fallen if Sikh flag was hoisted at Red Fort when national was not even touched. Army carries the same Sikh flag. Need is to counter the false propaganda,” he said, alleging that there appeared a conspiracy to engineer clash between farmers and police at Red Fort as similar tactics were used in Punjab too (in 1980s-90s) when families of the Punjab Police personnel were killed.
“We don’t want to disturb the leadership but they should learn from the mistakes. They are leading a big movement and should not repeat the mistakes to lead this to victory,” Dibdiba said.