After Red Fort Violence, Farmers’ Group Calls Off Tractor Rally: 10 Facts

Union Residence minister Amit Shah held a high-level assembly this night the place a choice was taken to deploy extra paramilitary forces in Delhi. Punjab and Haryana have been positioned beneath excessive alert. Web has been suspended in components of the Nationwide Capital Area — together with Delhi and components of Uttar Pradesh and Haryana.

The Delhi Police had allowed a rally with a hard and fast route and time. However the Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee refused to stay to the route. By 8 am, 1000’s entered the nationwide capital on foot. Dramatic visuals confirmed farmers breaching boundaries on the Singhu border, the epicentre of protests in opposition to the farm legal guidelines that began on November 26.

Violence broke out at central Delhi’s ITO, the place the police headquarters is positioned. A farmer died there as a tractor on approach to the Outdated Metropolis overturned, the police mentioned. A bus was vandalized in close by Akshardham, the place the police clashed with protesters. The opposite flashpoint was Nagloi, the place the police used teargas shells. The Delhi Metro Rail Company shut the gates at a number of metro stations.

Visuals from the Purple Fort confirmed farmers hoisting a sacred flag of Sikhs at a second flagpole. Repeated makes an attempt have been made to hoist flags on the fort’s domes as properly. Hundreds of others, waving the nationwide flag, stood on the big gates of the fort. The police have managed to push out protesters from contained in the fort. However many are nonetheless thronging the Ramlila grounds outdoors the fort.

“We got here right here to ship a message to the Modi authorities, our job is completed. We’ll return now,” one of many farmers advised NDTV on the Purple Fort. “We managed to achieve the fort regardless that they tried to cease us. We won’t cease until we attain our objective — the repeal of the three farm legal guidelines,” one other farmer mentioned.

The police have filed 4 circumstances over vandalism in East Delhi. Eight buses and 17 personal automobiles have been vandalised, the police mentioned. Regardless of having mounted routes, “farmers drove tractors off the routes and earlier than the mounted time, resulting in vandalism wherein many police personnel have been injured,” mentioned Delhi Police chief SN Shrivastava. Total, 83 police personnel have been injured within the violence.

A key pan-India farmers’ group, Samyukt Kisan Morcha, referred to as off the tractor rally, asking individuals to return to the protest websites outdoors Delhi borders. The group additionally mentioned anti-social components had “infiltrated the in any other case peaceable motion”. “The lengthy battle for greater than 6 months now, and greater than 60 days of protest at Delhi borders additionally appeared to have led to this case,” it added.

Farmers got police permission to carry the rally on the periphery of town after a courtroom battle. The rally — to be held over 60-odd-km stretches close to the Singhu, Tikri and Ghazipur borders — was anticipated to enter town solely after the standard Republic Day parade ended round 11.30 am.

The Centre had opposed the rally within the Supreme Court docket, contending that its timing will make it “a humiliation to the nation”. However the courtroom, which earlier upheld the farmers’ proper to carry peaceable protests, handed over the matter to the Delhi Police.

No breakthrough within the impasse over the farm legal guidelines has been doable regardless of 11 rounds of talks between the farmers and the federal government. The farmers turned down the Centre’s final supply to place the legal guidelines on maintain for 18 months whereas a particular committee conducts negotiations.