CHANDIGARH: A faceoff between farmers and Haryana Police in Hisar was averted on Monday after the district administration sat down for talks with an 11-member farmers’ delegation and agreed to withdraw all criminal cases lodged against farmers, besides getting their vehicles, damaged by the police during protests, repaired.
The farmers, however, will be hoisting black flags at the Singhu and Tikri borders on Wednesday to mark six months of farmers’ agitation against the Centre’s three farm laws. On May 16, farmers had clashed with the police before Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar was to visit Hisar to inaugurate a new Covid Care Centre. Several farmers and policemen were wounded in the clashes. The police had filed FIRs against some 350 farmers that day.
The farmer’s delegation that held talks with the district administration on Monday was led by Rakesh Tikai, Gurman Singh Charuni and Joginder Singh Ugraha. “We are satisfied with the assurances given by the administration,” Charuni said. According to sources, the administration has also accepted the farmers’ demand that the government gives a job to a family member of Ram Chander, a farmer who died on Monday on the way to Hisar.
Earlier in the day, the authorities were on tenterhooks as thousands of farmers from Hisar and adjoining districts gathered in Hisar on Monday. The farmers had entered the town undeterred by a heavy police presence. The mini secretariat and the residences of senior administration, police and judicial officials were sealed off by the police.
Haryana minister slams Opposition
Haryana Health Minister Anil Vij on Monday slammed the state’s opposition parties, saying they are ‘not well-wishers of protesting farmers’ and that had they been so they would have urged the protesters to take Covid-19 vaccines and tests.