New Delhi: More farmers joined the agitation at Delhi’s Ghazipur border Thursday midnight to breathe new life into a protest site that saw crowds thinning in the aftermath of the violence that took place during the tractor rally on Republic Day.
According to protesters at the site, farmers from Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab are believed to be marching towards Delhi.
Speaking to ThePrint, farmers said mahapanchayats have taken place in various districts, including Muzaffarnagar Nagar, Shamli, Baghpat and Baraut, to mobilise people.
“On Tikait sahab‘s appeal, farmers are marching towards Delhi. We won’t let the movement die,” a farmer from Bulandshahar told ThePrint, referring to a video of Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) leader Rakesh Tikait breaking down in front of a camera.
By 12 am on 29 January, around 500 farmers reached Ghazipur from nearby districts to extend support to the movement. Through the night, smaller groups of farmers kept arriving at the site.
Terai Kisan Sangathan president Tajinder Singh Birk told ThePrint that nearly 6,000 people are on their way from Uttarakhand’s Uddham Singh Nagar and the terai belt. “Due to dense fog and police barricading at several areas, farmers are getting delayed. Mobilisation is expected in hundreds of thousands,” he said.
Ghaziabad District Magistrate Ajay Shankar Pandey and Senior Superintendent of Police Kalanidhi Naithani visited the protest site post midnight to review the situation even as hundreds of security personnel in anti-riot gears were deployed since Thursday.
Many of these personnel, including those from the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) and the Rapid Action Force (RAF), left the protest site at night following official instructions.
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R-Day fall out
Mayhem broke out on 26 January when farmers breached police barricades to enter Delhi to carry out their protests. Groups of them even climbed the ramparts of Red Fort and unfurled the Nishan Sahib flag. Fearing detention after the violence, that left dozens injured and one farmer dead, many protesters left the city for their hometowns.
By the evening of 28 January, Ghazipur became quiet and relatively deserted. Organisations like Khalsa Help International had packed up and left, while hardly a few people could be seen listening to the farm leaders on stage, who continuously appealed to the others to not leave.
The Ghazipur district magistrate had also issued a notice to the farmers to vacate the protest site. However, some of them, led by BKU’s Tikait, stayed put. Around 5:30 pm that day, the UP Police also arrived at the site.
Tikait’s emotional appeal
Rakesh Tikait, while speaking to news channels, broke down in front of the camera as he claimed the farmers were being painted as traitors for the violence that broke out. The BKU had distanced itself from the violence, claiming that it was not responsible for it and even urged the police to investigate the matter and find the real culprits.
The clip of Tikat’s outburst started doing the rounds.
In the video, Tikait said they had called off their march to Parliament on 1 February, the day the Union Budget will be presented. “The movement won’t end … the country’s farmers will mobilise and keep the movement alive.”
“At 7:30 pm (Thursday) we got to know that our leader, Rakesh Tikait has shed tears here. Lakhs of farmers from Aligarh, Bijnor, Baghpat Hisar, Aligarh are mobilising to reach here for our leader,” a farmer from Muzaffarpur, who reached Ghazipur border by midnight said.
“I’ve come from Jalalabad in a caravan of more than 200 people. More people are mobilising following the day’s events on TV,” said Yogesh Kumar, who had also reached the protest site around Thursday midnight.
(With inputs from PTI)
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