Police operations that included tearing down temporary structures, confiscating cars, and arresting important farmer leaders cleared the locations that had been blocked because of the farmers' agitation.
Farmers who had been camping at the Shambhu and Khanauri border posts for more than a year were forcibly removed by Punjab Police on Wednesday. Police operations that included tearing down temporary structures, confiscating cars, and arresting important farmer leaders cleared the locations that had been blocked because of the farmers' agitation.
Police sources claim that prior to the operation, a significant security force deployment was in place. While returning from a meeting with a government team in Chandigarh, which was led by Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, farmer leaders Sarwan Singh Pandher and Jagjit Singh Dallewal were arrested in Mohali.
The Punjab government shut down the internet at the protest locations after they were arrested. To further limit farmers' mobility, police also used bulldozers to tear down concrete barricades that had been put up at the Haryana-Punjab Shambhu border. Traffic on the impacted roads has been rerouted in response to the police activity.
With BJP leaders denouncing the police action and charging the AAP-led Punjab government with trying to "wreck" the ongoing talks between the farmers and the Center, the eviction has caused a political uproar. Union Minister Ravneet Singh Bittu called on Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini to take down the remaining barricades on the Haryana side and denounced the detentions.
(This story is published from a syndicated feed)