Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) had given a nationwide call for Rail Roko on Thursday from 12 PM to 4 PM to show their protest against the farm laws.
Farmers protesting against the Centre’s new farm laws have gathered near rail tracks in parts of Punjab, Haryana Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Maharashtra, and Karnataka for the ”rail roko” protest.
The sloganeering and sit-ins started at noon and went on till 4 pm. Train services were stopped in several areas as part of precautionary measures.
Ghaziabad near Delhi — where protesting farmers have been blocking the highway since November — has also been put under a security blanket.
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In Haryana, the train stations at Sonipat, Ambala and Jind were completely blocked. Protesters, many of them women, squatted on the railway Ambala, Kurukshetra, Panipat, Panchkula and Fatehabad (Bhattu Kalan) districts.
In Punjab, protesters sat on tracks at many places on the Delhi-Ludhiana-Amritsar railway route, officials said. Farmers blocked the Jalandhar Cantt-Jammu railway track in Jalandhar and in Mohali district.
Utkal Express from Puri, Odisha to Haridwar Uttarakhand was stopped at Ghaziabad railway station itself. Farmers sat on the Modi nagar train tracks hence the train was stopped there.
There was a commotion in Bengaluru as the police refused to allow farmers to protest. “We are not being allowed by the police to hold rail roko. The police say no permission has been given for this protest. Why should we wait for the police to give permission when it was nationally announced by farm unions,” a farmer leader said.
