Jalandhar: Farmers lay siege to highway, commuters stuck in snarl-ups

Deepkamal Kaur

Jalandhar, November 21

Thousands of commuters travelling between Amritsar, Pathankot and Jammu on one side and Ludhiana, Nawanshahr, Chandigarh, Haryana and further on the other side, who were to cross over from Jalandhar, remained harassed throughout the day as farmers laid siege to the Jalandhar-Phagwara stretch of the national highway here today.

Demand of protesters

The farmers are holding an indefinite sit-in along Dhannowali village near Jalandhar Cantonment over their demand for hike in sugarcane price. Since the commuters were not aware of the dharna, most of them were in for a rude shock when their buses or cars were stopped around 4-5 km ahead of the Jalandhar bus stand.

Govt forced us to take harsh decision

We never wanted the commuters to suffer like this. It was the government that forced us to take such a harsh decision to block the highway. Had they increased the sugarcane rates on November 16 as was promised to us, no one would have been inconvenienced like it happened on Tuesday. — Manjit Singh Rai, president of the Bhartiya Kisan Union (Doaba)

The farmers are holding an indefinite sit-in along Dhannowali village near Jalandhar Cantonment over their demand for hike in sugarcane price. Since the commuters were not aware of the dharna being planned today, most of them were in for a rude shock when their buses or cars were stopped around 4-5 km ahead of the Jalandhar bus stand.

While several cars remained stuck in the traffic for hours, men, women and children who were travelling by buses had to walk down all this distance with their luggage to catch another vehicle to reach their destinations.

Youth from across Punjab and Haryana, who had their exam centre for Delhi Police entrance in TCS office just near the dharna site, were also an affected lot.

A group of boys, who came from Jind, said: “We reached the Jalandhar Cantt railway station only to find that there was no connecting vehicle available. So we are walking down to the centre about 3 km away with a hope of making it there in time.”

People, who had to board a train from the Jalandhar Cantonment railway station, were also a harassed lot as they too had to cover a long distance walking down through the dharna site to catch their trains.

Ram Kumar and his daughter, who came from Karnal by bus, said they de-boarded the bus on the Phagwara side of the protest. “We have to catch a train to Jammu from the Jalandhar Cantonment railway station. We had to come running all this distance as we feared that we could miss the train,” they said.

Several women were seen carrying luggage and holding their toddler through this distance. Though cops put up barricading at various locations and even diverted routes, commuters remained a harried lot.

Manjit Singh Rai, president of the Bhartiya Kisan Union (Doaba), said: “We never wanted the commuters to suffer like this. It was the government that forced us to take such a harsh decision to block the highway. Had they increased the sugarcane rates on November 16 as was promised to us, no one would have got inconvenienced like it happened today.”

He said: “We will continue with the dharna till our demand of increase in sugarcane price from Rs 380 to Rs 450 is agreed to or else we could even block the rail route along the dharna site tomorrow.”

The farmers had made all arrangements of lodging, langar, etc., on the dharna site.