Karnal SDM video: Haryana Chief Secretary asks Karnal DC for report

Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, August 31

Haryana’s chief secretary has asked Karnal’s deputy commissioner Nishant Yadav for a detailed report over Karnal sub-divisional magistrate’s alleged orders to policemen to “smash heads” of protesting farmers, officials said on Tuesday.

• 10 injured as police lathicharge farmers heading towards Karnal to protest against BJP meet; highways blocked
• Punjab, Haryana farmers protest Karnal lathicharge

There’s no deadline for the report. The development comes after a blazing row over a viral video that shows the sub-divisional magistrate, Ayush Singh, an IAS officer of the 2018 batch, asking policemen to smash protesters’ heads.

Farmers were protesting a meeting of the Bharatiya Janata Party leaders in Karnal.  Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar and BJP state president OP Dhankhar had attended the state-level meeting.

‘Break heads’ order: Khattar says Karnal SDM’s ‘choice of word inappropriate’, defends police action against farmers

Ten people were wounded in a lathicharge that followed soon after.  Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar has called the officer’s choice of words “unfortunate” but has defended police action even in the face of the growing criticism over what critics say was a brutal police action.

Farmers have been in an extended standoff with the state government, even on occasion clashing with police, since protests began against the controversial agriculture laws last year.  

Protests against three legislation—The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act and The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act-–began in September last year but reached Delhi’s doorstep in November.

The protesters, mostly from Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh, but who were also joined occasionally by others from across the country, have so far held eight rounds of talks with the central government with no breakthrough.   

Farmers fear that the laws will be to their detriment, and would leave them open to exploitation by private interests.