Chandigarh: The Punjab Police on Tuesday baton-charged protesters outside a liquor factory in Mansurwal village where they gathered in a show of solidarity with villagers who have been stationed there since July, alleging that the plant was polluting the environment.
The police fought off the demonstrators for the third day Tuesday, as they forced their way to the protest site, breaking barricades on the Amritsar Bathinda Highway, leading to the link road to the village.
The agitators were mostly from various factions of the Bharatiya Kisan Union.
While the majority of protesters marched on foot, a jeep broke the barricades and pushed the police out of its way. The police claimed 12 of their men were injured after farmers retaliated when they rained lathis on the vehicle.
A little later, however, the police allowed protesters to enter the area. Several of them had also made their way to the dissent site from inside roads connecting Mansurwal with other villages.
Following Monday’s clashes, the police sealed every entry point to the protest site — even parking buses and trucks on the link road to block vehicles from coming in.
Villagers have been squatting outside Malbros International Private Limited since July, forcing the factory to down its shutters. They alleged that waste products from the factory were polluting the air, soil and groundwater of 35 villages surrounding it.
The factory’s owner — liquor baron and former Akali MLA from the area Deep Malhotra — approached the Punjab and Haryana High Court in July to make his establishment functional.
In a series of orders, the high court asked the Punjab government to ensure the protest was shifted at least 300 meters from the factory’s gate so that it could start work. The deadline given to the state ended today.
Despite multiple court orders and the looming deadline, the protesters refused to budge, reiterating their demand that the factory be sealed. They also want the 2021 no-objection certificate given by the Punjab government to be withdrawn.
During the hearing of the case Tuesday, Justice Vinod Bhardwaj granted another 48 hours to the protesters and asked their counsels to persuade them to clear the approach to the factory.
Justice Bhardwaj also agreed to the agitators’ demand for a deeper investigation into the allegations of pollution by a technical committee, but only on the condition that they vacated the site first.
The state counsel told the high court that entry to the factory had been facilitated through an alternative gate, and that the cleaning staff could also access the complex.
Justice Bhardwaj initially refused to hear any argument put forth by the counsel of the protesters. He said a person who did not respect the law would not be heard. “First you vacate the site and then will I hear you,” he said.
In his last two orders – on 11 October and 22 November – Justice Bhardwaj had asked the state government to deposit Rs 20 crore with the high court registry as possible compensation to the factory owner, who has claimed losses of crores.
In the 22 November order, the justice had asked the government to list details of the protesters, along with their property details, so that their assets could be attached to compensate the factory owner.
As soon as Justice Bhardwaj started ordering the attachment on Tuesday, one of their counsel, R.S. Bains, said the court had held no discussion on the core subject of the protest — the alleged pollution by the factory.
“Instead, the court is insisting on the removal of protesters and compensation to the liquor baron while ordering attachment of property and produce of protesters,” Bains said.
“The right to life is as important as the right to conduct business,” he said, adding the protesters were finding it difficult even to drink the water drawn from their own borewells.
Justice Bhardwaj said the senior advocate was trying to overawe the court and was playing to the gallery to which Bains retorted that he was too popular to play to the gallery anymore and it seemed that the court which was trying to overawe the protesters’ counsels.
Bains said the court was drastically passing orders which could worsen the situation.
Justice Bhardwaj said his orders could be challenged in any appellate court, including in the Supreme Court. “Please approach any of these appellate courts and put my orders to test,” he said.
Senior advocate G.K. Mann, representing another dissenter, insisted they had a right to protest peacefully to which the judge pointed out that the entire police machinery, including 2,000 cops, were on duty at the site. “And you say it is a peaceful protest?” he asked.
Advocates Bains and Mann went on to explain how reports of the Punjab Pollution Control Board and a monitoring committee of the National Green Tribunal — which had given clean chits to the factory — were flawed. They demanded a deeper probe into the allegations of pollution.
The counsel for the factory, Puneet Bali, however told the court that the monitoring committee of the National Green Tribunal had carried out a thorough investigation into the allegations.
“At every step of the investigation by the monitoring committee, which was headed by former judge of the high court Justice Jasbir Singh, the protesters were involved. The monitoring committee members were allowed to gather the samples from anywhere the protesters wanted from inside the factory,” Bali said.
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