Chandigarh: As many as 15 farmers from Punjab sustained injuries on Friday, December 6, as Haryana police used tear gas shells to stop their march to Delhi to pressurise the Union government on their key demand for legal guarantee to Minimum Support Price (MSP).
The Punjab health department confirmed the injured count, saying that while most injured farmers are stable, one is in serious condition and currently under observation.
After an action-packed Friday, the situation was calm at the Punjab-Haryana inter-state border at Shambhu on Saturday but the tension is palpable.
While the Haryana government continues to maintain that the protesting farmers can’t be allowed to pass through the state without the Delhi police’s approval, the protesting farmers too refuse to give in.
After suspending the protest for the day on Saturday, the farmer unions vowed to resume it on Sunday at 12 pm, sending another jatha (contingent) of 101 farmers to join the Delhi march.
But the multi-layered barricades of boulders and mesh wiring on the Haryana side is an indication of the hurdles they are again set to encounter on Sunday.
The first jatha of farmers on Friday managed to get past three layers of barricades put up by Haryana’s security agencies but they could not pass through concrete wall structure.
As the stalemate continues with neither side willing to relent, another round of confrontation cannot be ruled out once the farmers resume their protest.
Also read: Despite Haryana Police Action, Farmers to Resume March to Delhi on Sunday
The injured farmers are currently undergoing treatment for injuries sustained on their heads, hands and legs on account of the tear gas shelling, confirmed Jatinder Kansal, Patiala district civil surgeon, under whose jurisdiction the injured farmers are being treated.
Kansal told The Wire that the critically injured farmer, identified as 27-year-old Harpreet Singh from Dera Baba Nanak in Gurdaspur district, was referred to the government-run Rajindra Hospital in Patiala, where he is under close supervision of doctors. Others are being treated at the civil hospital in Rajpura, around 20 kms from the Shambhu border.
Guramneet Mangat, general secretary of Progressive Farmers Front, one of the farmers’ organisations participating in the protest, told The Wire that Harpreet sustained both internal and external injuries after a tear gas shell hit him directly.
According to Mangat, the Haryana police also used chemical sprays and pellet guns at the site. Over 30 farmers had to be administered first aid due to injuries from the pellets and sprays.
Haryana had accused farmers of using unfair means including modified tractors during their Delhi march in February. “This time, we decided to march to Delhi on foot without any tractor or trolley and the whole world was witness to the government’s treatment of our peaceful protest,” Mangat said. He added that the authorities’ action fully exposed the Bharatiya Janata Party government at the Union and the state.
Meanwhile, an injured farmer, 48-year-old Sukhjinder Singh, who is a member of the Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee, told The Wire that all the farmers were marching towards Delhi peacefully. Yet, Haryana police personnel targeted them as if they were all “from a hostile country.”
Sukhjinder said that the police action is highly condemnable. The government is neither coming forward for talks nor allowing farmers to protest peacefully in Delhi, he added.
Sarwan Singh Pandher addressing the media at the Shambhu border. Photo: Vivek Gupta for The Wire
The farmers’ unions had hoped for talks with the Union government on Saturday but union leaders confirmed that they received no such invitation. One such leader, Sarwan Singh Pandher from Punjab, said that as of Saturday evening, they did not receive any message from the Union government for talks to address their issues and added that the group of 101 farmers would leave for Delhi on Sunday from the Shambhu border. He criticised the union government, holding it responsible for the farmers’ ongoing “Dilli Chalo” protest march. Pandher urged the elected MPs to hold a discussion over the farmers’ issue in the ongoing session of the parliament and the subsequent action taken by the security forces at the Shambhu border.
Meanwhile, Haryana police issued an advisory for media persons ahead of the farmers’ march on Sunday, asking them to maintain proper distance from the crowd at Shambhu and any other place where law-and-order related duty might be going on. Haryana police has also requested Punjab’s director general of police to stop journalists at least 1 km away from the border in Punjab.
Vivek Gupta is a Chandigarh-based journalist.
