Punjab: Quick, surprising eviction after 399 days
Punjab: Police today carried out eviction drives at Shambhu and Khanauri border points, removing protesting farmers and demolishing their temporary structures. Police detained over 300 protesters, including a 28-member delegation of farmer leaders Sarwan Singh Pandher and Jagjit Singh Dallewal. The delegation members were detained minutes after the seventh round of talks with the central government panel ended in Chandigarh. The national highway at Shambhu border which was blocked for traffic for the last 399 days (since February 13, 2024) was almost cleared with the removal of stage and tent city by police personnel. The process of removing tractor-trailers parked at Khanauri border was also underway when reports last came in. Around 200 farmers were detained at Khanauri, while over 100 were detained at Shambhu. Police faced mild resistance from the protesters at both places. However, many farmers alleged that they were manhandled while being pushed into the buses, causing their turbans to fall off.
Internet and power supply were shut down around the protest sites. A massive eviction drive was carried out at the Khanauri border under the supervision of DIG Mandeep Singh Sidhu. Before starting the drive, the DIG appealed to the farmers to vacate the site, following which he dispatched policemen to conduct searches and detain any farmer hiding in tents. SSP Nanak Singh, two AIGs and an SP monitored the drive at Shambhu. Apart from evicting the farmers, the police used bulldozers to remove tents at both the sites. Sources said the police had received intelligence inputs that the presence of farmers at the protest sites was low due to the meeting in Chandigarh. The action was taken after Ludhiana traders told AAP national convenor Arvind Kejriwal that if the farmers’ protest did not end, it would be difficult for the AAP to get votes in the Ludhiana West assembly by-election, sources said. Heavy police deployment was also made in Sangrur and Patiala. Reserve police personnel were deployed at Shambhu and Khanauri borders to deal with any situation. The farmers’ protest was centred on the demand for a legal guarantee on minimum support price for crops, among other issues.
Over 45 farmers have died and around 500 have been injured in the year-long protest as the two national highways have been blocked since February 2024, bringing trade to a standstill and causing inconvenience to commuters. Sources said Haryana officials are waiting for a green signal from their state counterparts before removing the barricades. Meanwhile, Dallewal was detained from the Zirakpur barrier. Pandher, Kaka Singh Kotra, Manjit Singh Rai, Sukhminder Kaur and Abhimanyu Kohar were arrested in Mohali. All the leaders have been taken to the Commando Police Training Centre at Bahadurgarh Fort in Patiala. Dallewal is likely to be shifted to a hospital, a source said. The farmers detained from both the protest sites have been taken to various police stations. Around 2,000 policemen were sent from Ladda Kothi near Sangrur to clear the protest site at Khanauri border. It is learnt that SSPs of several districts, including Sangrur, Barnala and Malerkotla, were deployed to monitor the operation. Anticipating police action in the morning, BKU (Siddhupur) leader Ran Singh Chattha in a video message had appealed to farmers from Sangrur, Barnala, Patiala, Mansa and Bathinda districts to reach Khanauri and Shambhu in large numbers to prevent the government from crushing the protest.
