Farmers’ protest turns violent in Bathinda, Punjab: Security personnel fire tear gas shells
Bathinda/Patiala: In Punjab’s Bathinda, police fired tear gas shells to control a group of protesting farmers after they allegedly pelted stones at policemen during a protest on Wednesday demanding the release of two farmers arrested last year. The officers provided this information.
Officials said that many protesting farmers have been detained. He said that farmers under the banner of Bharatiya Kisan Sangh (Ekta Ugrahan) gathered in Jeond village and protested outside the Bathinda district administrative complex. Heavy police force was deployed in Bathinda and surrounding districts to prevent the protesters from moving towards the Bathinda District Administrative Complex.
Bathinda Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Jyoti Yadav Bains said the “mob” was pelting stones at the police from rooftops. “The aggressive mob has been controlled and the situation is under control,” he said. A farmer participating in the protest, however, claimed that the policemen fired tear gas shells without any provocation. He said that protesting is a democratic right. He alleged that the police raided the residences of farmer leaders in view of the protest call and took them into custody. BKU (Ekta Ugrahan) had called for a protest on Wednesday demanding the release of farmers — Shagandeep Singh Jeond and Baldev Singh Chauke — who were arrested during a protest last year and lodged in Bathinda jail since April.
At the same time, the farmers who were going to join the protest organized in Bathinda were stopped by the police near Gajewas village on Samana-Bhawanigarh road in Samana, Patiala. To stop the farmers, the police parked trucks laden with soil on the road. Some farmers clashed with policemen after protesters were stopped from moving forward near a Gurudwara in Samana. The farmers claimed that they were going to hold a peaceful protest outside the Bathinda District Administrative Complex, but the police stopped them and detained several protesters.
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