Protesting Mansa farmer who attempted suicide at Badal village dies

Tribune News Service
Muktsar, September 18

A 55-year-old farmer from Mansa district killed himself with poison to protest controversial farm Bills at Muktsar’s Badal village on Friday. 

The farmer, identified as Pritam Singh, died at the Civil Hospital in the evening, hours after he allegedly attempted suicide by consuming a poisonous substance. 

Sources said he had joined a protest held outside Akali Dal’s first family Badals’ residence on Thursday night.

The three farm Bills— Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020, and The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, 2020—have sparked protests from farmers, many of who see it as being detrimental to their interests. 

Lok Sabha passed two of the three Bills—the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020’ and the ‘Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, 2020— on Thursday. 

The Bills replace ordinances of similar nature that the union cabinet had approved of in June. 

Farmers in Punjab have holding protests outside the Badal residence from September 15. Harsimrat Kaur Badal, the Member of Parliament from Bathinda, resigned from the union cabinet as the protests gathered steam.  

Protests outside the Badals’ house have led to a large deployment of police force in the village. The road leading the Badal residence has been sealed off.