Maintain law & order, Centre tells Punjab government

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, February 21

The Home Ministry on Wednesday issued an advisory to the Punjab Government, urging it to maintain law and order amid the ongoing farmers’ agitation as one person was killed after a clash with the Haryana Police on the Khanauri border as farmers tried to cross into Haryana and march towards Delhi.

Several protesting farmers on the Punjab-Haryana border are also said to have been injured in police action.

Shortly after the advisory was issued, 24-year-old protester Shubhkaran Singh succumbed to injuries at a hospital in Patiala after a clash with the Haryana Police on the Khanauri border on Wednesday, the first casualty in action in the farmers’ protest.

Two elderly farmers had earlier died of cardiac arrest during the ongoing agitation last week. The ministry’s advisory came as the protesting farmers announced that they would continue their ‘Dilli Chalo’ agitation on Wednesday.

The Delhi Police had beefed up security and directed personnel to ensure a strict vigil at Tikri, Singhu and Ghazipur borders.

The move came after the protesting farmers rejected the Centre’s proposal to buy pulses, maize and cotton crops through government agencies at the MSP for five years and announced that they would continue with their agitation.

Earlier, the Haryana Police had urged its Punjab counterparts to impound bulldozers from the inter-state border. “These can pose a threat to the security forces deployed at the border,” Haryana DGP Shatrujeet Kapoor has said in an urgent communication to his Punjab counterpart Gaurav Yadav.

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