Chandigarh/New Delhi, Nov 27,2020: Farmers from Punjab faced water cannons and broke police barriers at the state’s border with Haryana as they pushed towards the national capital Thursday on their Delhi Chalo march against the Centre’s farm laws.
By late evening, a large number of protesters from Punjab and Haryana were close to Delhi, where too police were deployed in strength at border points.
There were traffic snarls during the day at Delhi’s border with police checking vehicles coming in from Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. Metro services were restricted.
At the Punjab-Haryana Shambhu border, police and Punjab farmers in their tractor-trolleys were locked in a confrontation for a couple of hours in the morning.
Police made announcements on loudspeakers asking the farmers assembled on the Punjab side to disperse.
But as protesters tried to push through barricades, the Haryana Police used a water cannon and lobbed teargas shells. Farmers chucked some steel barricades into the Ghaggar river from the bridge where they had been stopped.
Apart from this confrontation in Ambala district, there were face-offs between the protesters and police in Haryana’s Sirsa, Kurukshetra, Fatehabad and Jind districts bordering Congress-run Punjab.
Police had placed cement and steel barricades and parked trucks on the road to stop the farmers’ tractor-trolleys, some of them laden with food for the planned two-day protest, which many felt could extend further.
But a few hours later, at most border-points, the farmers were let through.
At Shambhu, a few protesters initially managed to cross the barricades on foot. Later, police eased the blockade, allowing the tractors to proceed on the road to Delhi, 200 km away.
But barricades were also set up at other points on this Amritsar-Delhi highway that passes through BJP-run Haryana.
At Karnal, there was another face-off and police again used a water cannon.
By afternoon, several groups of protesters from Punjab and Haryana were travelling towards Delhi on tractor-trolleys. Police diverted private vehicles and long lines of trucks were parked on the road.
It is condemnable that Haryana Police is using such measures to suppress an assembly of peaceful protesters. We are protesting in a peaceful manner, but they want to prevent us from using our democratic right to protest, a Punjab farmer told reporters earlier at Shambhu.
Police used water cannons also against protesters trying to enter Kaithal district, and at Khanauri border where farmers were protesting under the banner of Bhartiya Kisan Union (Ekta-Ugarhan).
