NEW DELHI: More than 80 of its personnel were injured — many seriously — on Tuesday after violent clashes with groups of farmers who broke police barricades and stormed into the city on Republic Day to hold a tractor rally in protest of the Centre’s agriculture laws, the Delhi Police said.
The 86 injured police personnel have been admitted to several hospitals, including the trauma centre of the Civil Line Hospital and the Lok Nayak Hospital in central Delhi.The Delhi Police Tuesday said protesting farmers violated the conditions pre-agreed for their tractor parade and resorted to violence and vandalism.
In a statement, the police also claimed the force did all due diligence in following the conditions for the rally, but the protesters began their march much ahead of the scheduled time and extensive damage to public property was caused.
“We followed all conditions as promised and did our due diligence but the protest led to extensive damage to public property. Many policemen were also injured during the protest,” Delhi Police PRO Eish Singhal said.Alok Kumar, Joint Commissioner of Police, said legal action will be taken against those who assaulted the police personnel. A senior police officer said that in the morning at Ghazipur Border, a probationer IPS officer got injured as he along with Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (East) Manjeet tried to stop the farmers from breaking the barricades.
Additional DCP East Manjeet had a close shave as one of the farmers tried to hit him with his tractor but he escaped and did not sustain any injuries, the official said.The injured, including police personnel, were brought to the LNJP Hospital following the clashes on Tuesday. LNJP Hospital is currently a partially COVID-19 facility in central Delhi near ITO.
Police said its personnel have sustained injuries like leg and arm fractures and cut wounds. While police used teargas shells to disperse the restive crowds in some places, hundreds of farmers were seen chasing them with sticks at the ITO and the Red Fort and ploughing their tractors into parked buses, barricades and security personnel deployed to maintain law and order at several other places. A protester died after his tractor overturned.
The ITO resembled a war zone with a car being vandalised by angry protesters and shells, bricks and stones littering the wide streets, a testimony to the ugly turn taken by the two-month-long farmers’ protests against the agri laws.
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