BELAGAVI: Though the police arrested many farmers who marched towards Suvarna Vidhana Soudha at various places across the state, hundreds of farmers managed to reach the town on Sunday night and started an indefinite protest on Monday.
The farmers, including women and children, staged their protest on an open place, about 2 km from the soudha.
They criticised the government for arresting other farmers and alleged the move was taken to crush the protest.
Farmer leaders Kodihalli Chandrashekhar and M B Malali said the government was trying to snatch farmers’ rights to protest by arresting them.
They added farmers had come to Belagavi to get justice through peaceful protest but the arrest has forced them go for other kinds of protests.The farmers said the arrests were against democracy and Chief
Minister Siddaramaiah was acting like a dictator and people of the state would teach him a lesson for his anti-farmer policies.
Ministers Mahadev Prasad and Krishna Byre Gowda met the farmers later at the protesting
venue and said they were not aware of the farmers' arrest.
Later, they said the police were not instructed to arrest any farmer and added the police were told to release the arrested farmers immediately.