INDIA DETAINS HUNDREDS OF PROTESTING FARMERS, CAMPS BULLDOZED

Thu 20 March 2025:

Police in India’s northern state of Punjab detained hundreds of farmers who have been protesting for over a year for better crop prices. Authorities also used bulldozers to dismantle their makeshift camps.

Protest leaders Sarwan Singh Pandher and Jagjit Singh Dallewal were among those detained by the Punjab police in the early hours of Thursday. Dallewal was taken away in an ambulance as he had been on an indefinite hunger strike for months.

“We did not need to use any force because there was no resistance,” Nanak Singh, a senior police officer, told the ANI news agency. “The farmers cooperated well and they sat in buses themselves.”

The authorities cut off the electricity supply and slowed down the internet speed at both sites. Police used torches to carry out the clearing process, according to reports.

The farmers were detained in Mohali after a clash with security forces. They were heading to the Shambhu border protest site after a meeting with a central delegation led by Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan

Meanwhile, The Tribune reported that the decision to take action against the protesting farmer unions was reportedly made on Monday night, following a meeting between top AAP functionaries and industrialists. The industrialists expressed concerns that the protests were incurring significant costs.

The police also removed farmers from the Punjab-Haryana Shambhu and Khanauri borders and dismantled the temporary structures they had erected. A number of farmers were detained from these areas as well.

Farmers had been camping at the border after being stopped from marching to Delhi with their demands.

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Detentions come amid ongoing negotiations

The farmers have been protesting for more than a year, demanding the government provide a legal guarantee of a minimum support price (MSP) for their crops.

The farmers have been camping at the border of the neighboring state of Haryana, blocking the highway as their protest march to the capital, New Delhi, was halted by authorities.

Since last year, farmer leaders and the government have held several rounds of talks; however, no conclusion has been reached.

The seventh round of talks between farmer leaders and a central delegation concluded on Wednesday, and the next meeting is slated to be held on May 4, 2025.

“On one hand, the government is negotiating with the farmer organizations, and on the other hand, it is arresting them,” Rakesh Tikait, a spokesperson for the farmer group Bhartiya Kisan Union, said on X.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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