Hello and welcome to the details of Indian police fire tear gas as protesting farmers march to capital and now with the details
Nevin Al Sukari - Sana'a - A man walks past barricades infront of vehicles stuck in heavy traffic at the New Delhi-Gurgaon Sirhaul expressway during a nationwide strike called by farmers on February 13, 2024. — AFP pic
NEW DELHI, Feb 13 —Indian security forces fired tear gas today to stop thousands of farmers demanding minimum crop prices from marching on the capital New Delhi after talks with the government failed.
Local broadcasters showed thick clouds of tear gas fired to disperse protesters near Ambala, some 200 kilometres north of the capital.
Police have set up a fearsome blockade of metal spikes, cement, and steel barricades on the highways from three surrounding states leading to the capital.
“Maximum numbers have been deployed,” Ranjay Atrishya, assistant commissioner of Delhi Police, told AFP.
Advertisement
Public gatherings of more than five people have been banned in the capital.
Farmers in India have political heft due to their sheer numbers, and the threat of renewed protests comes ahead of national elections likely to begin in April.
Two-thirds of India’s 1.4 billion people draw their livelihood from agriculture, accounting for nearly a fifth of the country’s GDP, according to government figures.
Advertisement
Indian broadcasters showed columns of hundreds of tractors moving towards the capital from the surrounding states of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.
An AFP photographer saw police close roads at Ghazipur on the outskirts of Delhi, using multiple lines of blockades. A first line of defence using razor wire was set up, then metal barriers, concrete blocks and finally police buses.
‘Oppressing us’
“We tried our best to solve our problems through discussions with the government, but they are insistent on oppressing us,” Sarwan Singh Pandher, a top farmers’ union official from Punjab, told reporters.
The farmers are demanding a law to fix a minimum price for their crops, besides a clutch of other concessions including waiving off loans.
“The government should listen to the farmers instead of using tear gas shells and guns against them,” said Randeep Surjewala, an opposition Congress MP from Haryana, where many of the protesting farmers come from.
Farmers have called for a “Delhi Chalo”, or “March to Delhi”, echoing protests in January 2021 when farmers breached barricades and marched into the city on Republic Day.
Protests by farmers against agricultural reform bills in November 2020 lasted for more than a year, forming the biggest challenge to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government since it came to power in 2014.
Tens of thousands of farmers then set up makeshift camps, with at least 700 people killed during the protests.
In November 2021, a year after protests began, Modi pushed through parliament the repeal of three contentious laws that farmers claimed would let private companies control the country’s agriculture sector.
Thousands of Indian farmers die by suicide every year because of poverty, debt and crops affected by ever-more erratic weather patterns caused by climate change. — AFP
These were the details of the news Indian police fire tear gas as protesting farmers march to capital for this day. We hope that we have succeeded by giving you the full details and information. To follow all our news, you can subscribe to the alerts system or to one of our different systems to provide you with all that is new.
It is also worth noting that the original news has been published and is available at Malay Mail and the editorial team at AlKhaleej Today has confirmed it and it has been modified, and it may have been completely transferred or quoted from it and you can read and follow this news from its main source.
