Tight security remains in Delhi as farmers vow to continue march

Security arrangements to prevent a march of farmers to the Capital remained in place on Wednesday a day after thousands of protesters faced off with security personnel as they tried to cross layers of barricading at the Shambhu border between Haryana and Punjab.
The protesters late on Tuesday night vowed to resume the march on Wednesday morning hours after at least 110 of them were injured in clashes with security forces, who used tear gas shells and water cannons.
The Samyukt Kisan Morcha, a union of farmers which has called for a nationwide strike on Friday, wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday accusing the government of trying to divide the farm organisations.
The protesters in trucks and tractors began their march at 10am on Tuesday, hours after negotiations between Union ministers Piyush Goyal and Arjun Munda and farmers ended in a deadlock on Monday night. They converged on border points in Punjab and Haryana. The protesters tried to remove layers of security barricades as thousands of police personnel struggled to stop them.
Drones were used to drop tear gas shells on farmers at the Shambhu and Jind borders separating Punjab from Haryana as they made their way through the initial levels of blockading.
Farmers in Jind were baton-charged. Several farmers were detained and released hours later.
In New Delhi, security measures disrupted traffic as 2,000 police personnel sealed the borders for much of the day. Police said they wanted to prevent a rerun of the January 2021 violence when protesting farmers stormed the Red Fort.
Prohibitory orders to restrict movement and public gatherings were enforced as part of heightened security arrangements in the Capital ahead of the march of farmers from Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh.
Restrictions were on Tuesday imposed outside at least eight metro stations with one or multiple gates shut to control the flow of passenger movement, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) said citing instructions from the Delhi Police. Longer queues at stations triggered chaos, particularly during office hours.
The traffic movement in parts of Delhi went into a complete tailspin during the morning commuting hours with barricades on arterial roads. Traffic jams were reported at major border points with Noida and Gurugram.
The traffic movement also slowed down in central Delhi with pickets clogging it.
Delhi Police installed barricades at the Singhu flyover from the Kundli side allowing one lane on both carriageways for traffic movement. Commuters coming from Haryana faced up to an hour-long traffic congestion.
Rows of metal barricades, shipping containers, and concertina wires were placed on Delhi’s fringes as farmers planned to converge at the Capital’s Singhu, Tikri, and Ghazipur border points on Tuesday afternoon.
The jams spilled onto arterial stretches across the city. In a revised traffic advisory on Monday evening, the Delhi Police warned commuters that traffic diversions “may be required at Singhu, Ghazipur and Tikri borders depending on the conditions”.
Over 50 Delhi Police and paramilitary companies equipped with tear gas launchers and shells, bulletproof vests, helmets, batons, and sophisticated weapons were deployed at the borders. Drones were also deployed over the city’s fringes.
Iron barricades, jersey barriers, shipping containers, barbed wire fencing, iron nails, hydra cranes, buses, and other vehicles formed multi-layered blockades at the borders to stop the protesting farmers from entering Delhi.
An alert was sounded in all police stations across the city and police personnel were asked to intensify police pickets, patrolling, and checking of vehicles. The police put up check-posts in central Delhi on Monday.
The farmers are seeking minimum support prices for their crops, waivers on farm loans, and jobs for relatives of those killed during the 13-month-long farmers protest between November 2020 and December 2021. They are also demanding compensation for the farmers injured in Lakhimpur Kheri and the withdrawal of cases registered against protesting farmers.
Four protesting farmers were mowed down at Lakhimpur Kheri in October 2021. Union minister Ajay Kumar Mishra Teni’s son, Ashish Mishra, is the key accused in the mowing.
In 2020-21, cultivators held one of the biggest demonstrations in decades and prompted the government to repeal three agricultural reform laws enacted in September 2020.
Tens of thousands of farmers opposing the laws hunkered down on highways across several states for nearly 14 months. They virtually set up protest townships at five sites including Ghazipur, Singhu, and Tikri, and choked traffic, rejecting the government’s insistence that the laws would benefit them by giving them greater access to markets. Farm unions insisted the laws would leave cultivators at the mercy of corporations.