A day before protest, farm leaders detained

Several farmer leaders were rounded up from the district in the wee hours of Tuesday from their respective places.

Among prominent leaders, Balbir Singh Rajewal was detained by the Punjab Police from his residence in Samrala during a raid early this morning.

Another prominent leader, Veerpal Singh Dhillon, general secretary BKU (Kadian), was detained from his residence at Model Gram near Kochar Market. As the police knocked the door of his house, he started sharing videos of him being detained by them. Dhillon was taken to the Kochar Market police post and was not allowed to move out of the station.

While talking to The Tribune over phone from the police post, Dhillon said he was expecting police action as he, along with his huge supporters, had plans to take part in the protest to be held on March 5 in Chandigarh, a call for which was given by the Samyukta Kisan Morcha. He had also contacted a large number of supporters who were supposed to come on tractor-trailers to reach Chandigarh for the agitation.

“Four to five personnel of the Ludhiana police had reached outside his house around 1.45 am and when I asked them the reason of knocking on my door, they said they had come to detain me. Later, they took me to the Kochar Market police post,” Dhillon said.

He claimed that he was part of the delegation that met CM Bhagwant Singh Mann at Chandigarh on Monday.

Notably, after the detention of Dhillon, his supporters had also reached the police post and kept sitting with him.

He said the police had also rounded up Gurjit Singh Gill from Raikot and some other members of the BKU (Kadian) were also placed under house arrest by the police to prevent them from mobilising supporters for the March 5 protest. The police had also went to detain our leader Harmeet Kadian but he managed to escape before the police could reach his house.

“The police cannot stop us from holding the protest in Chandigarh, if we are detained by the police, our hundreds of supporters have already made preparations to reach Chandigarh on Wednesday. Our agitation is going to be successful at any cost,” Dhillon said.