Punjab Police has stopped the march of Bharatiya Kisan Union Ekta Ugrahan in Bathinda. The farmers were reportedly moving towards the Bathinda’s Deputy Commissioner’s (DC) office in a protest. Following this, the farmers are staging a sir-in protest on the Bathinda-Chandigarh highway before Rampura Phul raising their demands. Police forces were deployed but the farmers refuse to budge.
As per the reports, the police are attempting to persuade the farmers, while they have been sitting on the highway for more than half an hour now. Subsequently, the traffic from Bathinda to Chandigarh has now been diverted via villages.
Meanwhile, there have been reports of clashes between the farmers heading towards Bathinda and the police in Samana, situated in Patiala. Reportedly, one of the main demands of the farmers is that their two imprisoned colleagues, Baldev Singh from Chaoke village and Shagandeep Singh from Jiond village be released immediately. As per the information, both of them have been in jail for more than nine months.
Purportedly, the incident is related to the Adarsh School located in village Chaoke, Bathinda. Here some teachers were removed for levelling corruption allegations against the school management, following which the teachers began to protest which was later joined by the farmers.
As per reports, a DSP got injured during the clash and police in return, detained some protesters. Later the police filed cases against some farmers and apprehended them, out of which some were released. Now, the farmers are protesting to get Baldev Singh and Shagandeep Singh released too.