CHANDIGARH: The Punjab police continued their statewide crackdown against protesting farmers associated with farmer unions Sanyukt Kisan Morcha (non-political) and Kisan Mazdoor Morcha (KMM) who were prevented from reaching Shambhu police station on the border with Haryana for a day-long dharna. A strict warning was issued by Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann against any sort of road or rail blockade apart from plans for protests or strikes causing inconvenience to the general public.
All roads leading to Shambhu police station were heavily barricaded. At certain places, loaded vehicles were put on the roads to disrupt the convoys of protesters. On National Highway 44 near the Shambhu border, police personnel were checking every vehicle and allowing passage only to those headed toward Delhi or Haryana, leading to traffic jams.
Senior Superintendent of Police of Patiala Varun Sharma said, "No one will be allowed to hold protests and harass the people. We will not allow farmers to disrupt law and order at any cost."
Many farmer leaders, including Jagjit Singh Dallewal, were detained in various districts on Monday ahead of the protest.
Irked that many farmers leaders have been placed under house arrest, Dallewal, in a video message uploaded on Tuesday, said the farmer unions only wanted to raise their voice against the police action on March 19-20 but the AAP-led Punjab government has turned the state into a garrison and started a crackdown against farmers.
"Many of the leaders detained yesterday have been sent to jails including our leader Kaka Singh Kotda. CM Mann should keep in mind that such state repression may push them towards launching another protest. The protests can never be silenced through coercion as more repression faces more resistance and rising voices do not tolerate dictatorship," he said.
Sarwan Singh Pandher, convener of the Kisan Mazdoor Morcha, said Punjab appears to have turned into a police state. "Peaceful protests against the state government are not allowed,” he said.
Farmers, mainly activists of the Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh committee, were stopped at Ajitwal town in Moga and a few of them were even taken into custody, claimed farmer leaders.
Farmers from Ambala in Haryana were also not allowed to reach Shambhu, being stopped at Gurdwara Manji Sahib. "Punjab police reached the gurudwara in plain clothes and studied their movements," claimed a Haryana farmer leader.
The dharna is in response to the police crackdown on March 19, when farmer leaders were detained after a meeting with Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan in Chandigarh. The Shambhu and Khanauri protest sites were cleared by the state police on the same day. The farmers are demanding compensation for the items that had allegedly been stolen or gone missing during the police crackdown at Shambhu, which they claimed were later traced to individuals linked to the Aam Aadmi Party and police personnel.