Delhi: Clashes have been reported near the Singhu Border when a group of protesters claiming to be ‘local residents’, broke the police barricades and tried to stone pelt and uproot tents at the Delhi side of the border.
According to reports, clashes and instances of stone-pelting were reported at 1:45 pm. Due to the clashes between the agitating farmers and the second group of people, the police resorted to lathi-charging and used tear gas shells to disperse the crowd.
A police personnel has also been injured in the clash between the attackers and protesting farmers. The injured police personnel has been identified as Alipur Station House Officer (SHO) Pradeep Paliwal, said Delhi Police.
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The attacking group demanded that the farmers should vacate the Singhu border protest site as they had ‘insulted’ the national flag during their tractor parade on Republic Day. They were armed with sticks and asked the farmers to leave while raising slogans such as ”Khalistan Murdabad”, “Tirange ka apmaan nahi sahega Hindustan” (India will not tolerate the insult of the flag).
Speaking to us, Paramjeet Singh of Jai Kisan Andolan has said that the attackers were part of Hindu Yuva Vahini and Hindu Sena, with around 150-200 of them present. This is not the first time the Hindu Sena has attacked the tents at the Singhu Border. As reported by us in the morning, they had attacked at Singhu Border yesterday too, giving the farmers an ‘ultimatum’ to evacuate the protest site in 24 hours. He has further said that the tents being attacked, belonged to Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee. On mentioning that the events happened on the Delhi side of the border, he further added that, ‘The station house officers were in collusion with the Hindu Yuva Vahini. They had covertly conducted meetings last night along with RSS-BJP forces in the nearby villages of the districts Bahktiyarpur, Alipur.’
Farmers have been protesting against the three farm laws passed by the Modi Government last year, for the past two months at Singhu Border. The farmers have repeatedly asked to not get the issue diverted and have claimed that there are anti-social elements planted within farmers protests trying to harm the movement.
