India, July 22 -- A proposed Kisan Mahapanchayat in Delhi against the India-US trade deal triggered high drama at the Punjab-Haryana border on Tuesday after Haryana Police prevented farmers from entering the state, leading to hours of protests before the agitation ended following assurances from the Haryana government. Thousands of farmers from Punjab, travelling in buses to attend the Mahapanchayat at Delhi's Kisan Ghat under the banner of the Desh Bachao Morcha, were stopped at the Shambhu border where Haryana authorities had erected multiple layers of barricades, cement blocks and chained barricades on the bridge over the Ghaggar river. A heavy police deployment, including water cannons kept on standby, was in place to prevent the farmers from proceeding towards the national capital.
The farmers, who had stayed overnight at the sarai of Gurdwara Sri Fatehgarh Sahib, began their journey in the morning and reached Shambhu via Madhopur near Sirhind before being halted. Prohibitory orders had already been imposed in Ambala district, while security was tightened along key stretches of the national highway. Farmer leaders also claimed that protesters were stopped at the Khanauri border, Shahabad, Karnal and near Jyotisar in Kurukshetra. The protest concluded peacefully around 6 pm after assurances by Haryana Agriculture Minister Shyam Singh Rana and Ambala Deputy Commissioner Ajay Singh Tomer. Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann also criticised the Haryana government for stopping the farmers and urged the Centre to invite farmer organisations for talks instead of preventing them from travelling to Delhi. Meanwhile, farmers' protests also disrupted traffic on the Delhi-Meerut Expressway (DME) and NH-9 for several hours on Tuesday after police stopped groups heading to Delhi. Security remained tight at the UP Gate on the Ghaziabad-Delhi border, with Uttar Pradesh and Delhi Police setting up multiple barricades and checking vehicles to prevent protesters from entering the national capital. Several farmer from western Uttar Pradesh, including Meerut, Baghpat, Bijnor and Bulandshahr, were intercepted at the border. Police detained over 60 farmers after some attempted to breach barricades.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.