Hundreds of farmers, many without masks, clashed with the police in Kurukshetra in Haryana.
Chandigarh:
Hundreds of farmers protesting against three central government ordinances related to agriculture were charged with latex by police in Kurukshetra, Haryana, a day after they ignored warnings from the state and district administration and marched towards a rally site. . Farmers from across the state, who were heading to the Pipli protest site in trucks, were also prevented from reaching the site.
Amid a surge in the number of coronavirus cases, Haryana’s Home and Health ministers had called on the Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU) and other farmers’ bodies to cancel the rally or face charges under the Epidemic Act. and the Disaster Management Law.
The district administration had even imposed Section 144 to ensure that no such meeting takes place in view of Defense Minister Rajnath Singh’s attendance at the Rafael aircraft induction ceremony in Ambala, which is only 50 minutes away. km away.
The farmers union had said that it will go ahead with its plans with “all precautions in view of the pandemic.”
Today, however, hundreds of farmers, many of them without masks, clashed with the police for trying to prevent them from moving towards the protest site in Pipli of Kurukshetra.
They shouted slogans against the Center to withdraw the Ordinance on Trade and Trade in Agricultural Products (Promotion and Facilitation); the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Guarantee and the Agricultural Services Ordinance of 2020 and an amendment to the Essential Products Act of 1955.
Farmers’ agencies fear that farmers will not be able to obtain a minimum price support for crops after the introduction of new rules. They insist that the government should introduce a law that guarantees them a minimum support price.
Farmers also fear that an amendment to the Essential Products Act of 1955 will also lead to black marketing.
The protest, which comes in the context of a similar protest in Haryana and Punjab earlier, was organized even as Haryana Agriculture Minister JP Dalal said the state government was committed to providing a minimum price of support for all crops.
“We must raise the voice of the farmers, we want these ordinances against the farmers to be withdrawn, which will destroy the peasants and leave them at the mercy of market forces,” said the head of the BKU state unit, Gurnam on Wednesday. Singh.
The opposition leader in the BJP-led Haryana government, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, has also shown his support for the unrest.
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