Farmers burn Punjab CM’s effigies in villages against their eviction from Shambhu, Khanauri

The Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee (KMSC) said on Saturday that it had burnt effigies of the AAP government in villages of Punjab in protest against the eviction of farmers from the Shambhu and Khanauri border points by the state police.

Meanwhile, some farmer leaders visited their imprisoned colleagues, including Sarwan Singh Pandher, in the Patiala jail.

They said that around 125 protesters are lodged in the Patiala jail, 150 in the Nabha jail and 40 in the Sangrur jail.

“We met farmer leaders, including women, in the Patiala jail. They said they are in high spirits and that the fight is on,” farmer leader Guramneet Singh Mangat said.

In a crackdown on Wednesday, several farmer leaders, including Pandher and Jagjit Singh Dallewal, were detained by the Punjab Police as they were returning from a meeting with a central delegation, led by Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, in Chandigarh.

Meanwhile, KMSC leader Sukhwinder Singh slammed the AAP government for detaining the farmer leaders and evicting the protesters from Shambhu and Khanauri.

He demanded the release of the detained farmers.

Singh also claimed that several belongings of farmers at the Shambhu and Khanauri border points between Punjab and Haryana were missing following the police action.

He said that effigies of Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann were burnt in villages on Saturday and this would continue for the next couple of days.

“We will intensify our agitation,” Singh said.

Several farmers, who were part of the Shambhu and Khanauri protests, have claimed that their belongings, including trolleys, are missing, adding that they might have been stolen.

Mangat claimed that many trolleys were missing when the farmers went to the sites to take those back.

Besides, air-conditioners, refrigerators, inverters, LPG cylinders, washing machines, fans and other items are also missing, he said.

Farmers are visiting villages in search of their belongings, he said.

Another KMSC leader, Satnam Singh Pannu, demanded that the Punjab government compensate for the loss of missing belongings and dismantle the structures put up by farmers at the Shambhu and Khanauri protest sites.

As the protests got stretched, the farmers had built temporary structures on the highway to accommodate the protesters and sustain their agitation.

As part of the crackdown, the Punjab Police deployed JCB machines to dismantle the temporary structures to clear the highway at Shambhu and Khanauri.

The protesting farmers—led by the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (Non-Political) and the Kisan Mazdoor Morcha—were camping at the Shambhu (Shambhu-Ambala) and Khanauri (Sangrur-Jind) border points since February 13 last year, when their march to Delhi was thwarted by security forces.