35 hurt as bull mauls protesting Bathinda farmers

Bharat Khanna

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, September 10

At least 35 farmers, including 17 women, were injured when a raging bull charged into farmers staging a protest near the Bathinda District Complex today.

Several of the injured have been hospitalised. The protesters accused the district administration of deliberately setting the bull on them to disrupt their demonstration. They argued that there was no way the animal could have slipped past unnoticed when the police had barricaded the entry and exit points to the protest site.

The farmers also alleged that health officials had failed to provide ambulance for the injured. The policemen said the bull came from one end of the street and stormed out of the other end before they could act.

The Bathinda president of Bharatiya Kisan Union (Ekta-Ugraha), Shingara Singh Mann, said, “It was a desperate attempt by the police to foil our protest. A number of farmers, mostly elderly and women, have been badly injured... If the police could stop the protesters at the barricades, how is it possible they did not notice a raging bull charging at a peaceful gathering.” Senior Superintendent of Police Inder Mohan Singh Bhatti said, “It’s a baseless charge. The farmers could themselves have controlled the raging bull. It was not out duty either.”

“The bull came from the Circuit House gate and it is tough to figure out how it entered inside when the protesters had blocked both the entrances (of the Circuit House),” said an injured farmer, Samikkar Singh of Gehle village in Mansa. The farmers were protesting the Punjab government’s agricultural policy which, they claimed, had destroyed the state's farming sector. The event today had the support of 10 farmer outfits, mainly the offshoots of the Bharatiya Kisan Union.  The protesters, belonging to the Malwa districts of Mansa, Muktsar, Fazilka, Faridkot and Bathinda, were demanding a Rs 40,000 per acre compensation for the cotton growers whose crop had been damaged by whitefly. Similar protests have been planned in Patiala on September 15, Amritsar on September 21 and Jalandhar on September 24.