NEW DELHI: Ultra-Left leaders and pro-Left Wing extremist elements have hijacked the farmers’ agitation, government sources claimed on Friday, a claimed junked by the farmers as propaganda to defame them. The government sources said there are “credible intelligence inputs” that extremist elements will spur incidents of violence, arson and damage to public property in the coming days. “Radical elements have advised the farmers to block the Delhi-Jaipur highway,” said a source.
The claims came after posters demanding the release of writers, intellectuals and rationalists, mainly arrested in connection with the Elgar Parishad and Delhi riots cases, came up at the sites where the farmers are on sit-in protests to demand the scrapping of three recently passed farm laws.
According to reports, these posters first appeared on Thursday, the 15th day of the farmers’ agitation. The Bharatiya Kisan Union (Ugrahan) was holding a demonstration at the Tikri border in the national capital where some posters calling for immediate release of activists Gautam Navlakha, Sudha Bhardwaj, Varvara Rao and Anand Teltumbde, and Delhi riots accused Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam and Khalid Saifi were put up by unknown persons.
All these accused have been booked under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).
The farmer associations rejected the government’s claims and maintained that their protest was apolitical and peaceful. “No one can influence us.
This is the government’s propaganda to defame us. All the decisions are taken by the Samyukt Kisan Union,” Raminder Singh Patiyal, president of one of the 32 agitating unions, Kirti Kisan Sangathan, said. Leaders of BKU (Ekta Ugrahan) maintained there’s nothing wrong in protesting in support of jailed activists.