Farmers hold 4 officers ‘hostage’ in Sangrur village

Parvesh Sharma
Tribune News Service
Sangrur, November 11

Farmers under the banner of BKU (Ugrahan), who have been sitting on dharna on Sunam-Bhawanigarh road at Gharachon village since Monday evening have reportedly held hostage senior officers of the agriculture department.

Sangrur chief agriculture officer (CAO) Jaswinderpal Singh Grewal, deputy registrar Jatinderpal Singh and two agriculture development officers had gone to the village, where they were held hostage.

“We had come to Gharachon village to check the performance of happy seeder and other machines that were given to area farmers to sow wheat without burning the stubble. But farmers gheraoed us and are not allowing us to leave a dhaba in front of which they are holding sit-in,” CAO Grewal said.

BKU (Ugrahan) Bhawanigarh block president Manjit Gharachon alleged that officers had been harassing farmers. “We gheraoed them to protest against the harassment of farmers. We will not release them till they promise not to harass any farmer in future,” he said.

At the time of filing of this report, the number of farmers was increasing as more were reaching the protest venue while police personnel were trying to convince the protesters to end the stir.