CHANDIGARH: The Haryana police on Tuesday detained farmers at various places while they were proceeding to Chandigarh to protest against the failure of the government to offer compensation for their crops damaged in floods.
The farmers are demanding a package of Rs 50,000 crore from the Centre for damages caused by floods in the northern region, including Punjab. They are also demanding Rs 50,000 per acre compensation for crop loss, Rs 5 lakh for a damaged house, and Rs 10 lakh compensation for a family of a person who died in the floods.
The farmers were stopped at Ambala and several other places and detained by the police. Police have been deployed in large numbers on the points bordering Chandigarh to prevent the farmers from entering the city.
On the Ambala-Chandigarh road, police had set up barricades at many places and the vehicles passing through were being searched. Also, Anti-riot vehicles and a CCTV vehicle were deployed in Rajpura by Punjab Police.
Farmers had claimed that several of their leaders were detained on Monday in different parts of Punjab, while some farmers were also held in Ambala and Kurukshetra in Haryana ahead of their protest plan.
The farmers had even laid siege to some toll plazas in Amritsar and Tarn Taran of Punjab in protest against the detention of their leaders. Also, the farmers resorted to dharna at the toll plaza between Shahkot and Moga. The Sugarcane Sangharsh Samiti and Bhartiya Kisan Union demanded the government release all the detained farmer leaders immediately, failing which, they threatened to launch a huge protest.
Earlier on Monday, a farmer died in Sangrur district of Punjab after being run over by a tractor-trolley, while five policemen were injured after growers clashed with police over the "detention" of some farm leaders.
Family members demanded the police to hand over the body of Pritam Singh who was run over on Monday so that they can move it to a hospital for post-mortem. But police declined to handover the body suspecting that a dharna would be staged by the family.
A case has been registered against farmers at the Longowal police station in Sangrur district for the death of a farmer yesterday evening this has further agitated the farmers and they want the case withdrawn.
Sixteen farm bodies, including the Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee, Bharti Kisan Union (Karanti kari), BKU (Ekta Azaad), Aazaad Kisan Committee, Doaba, BKU (Behramke) and the Bhoomi Bachao Mohim, had given the call for staging a demonstration here to seek compensation for losses caused by floods.
Meanwhile, the Punjab Government released Rs 186 crore to the farmers for the loss of their crops in recent floods.
Punjab Revenue, Rehabilitation, and Disaster Management Minister Bram Shanker Jimpa said that an amount of more than Rs. 186 crore to compensate for the crop loss of the farmers of the affected districts due to floods has been released. He said that advance funds have been released to the Deputy Commissioners of 16 districts of the state from the Natural Disaster Relief Fund to provide relief for the crop damage.
Jimpa said that in the months of July and August, the crops of farmers were damaged due to floods in many areas and a Special Girdawari has been conducted in all the flood-affected areas of the state. He said that Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann fulfilled his promise to the flood victims on August 15 and initiated the process to hand over cheques of compensation.