Farmers sit in protest on side of Delhi-Jaipur highway as cops put up barricades

Chandigarh, Dec. 13 (PTI): Farmers from Rajasthan and some other places gathered in large numbers on the Haryana-Rajasthan border near Rewari for their march towards Delhi and sat in protest on side of the Delhi-Jaipur national highway as the Haryana police put up barricades to stop their onward march.

Rewari’s Superintendent of Police Abhishek Jorwal told reporters at the site that district authorities had imposed Section 144 of the CrPC banning assembly of five or more people.

“We have set up barricades and we will try to stop them here,” he said, adding, besides adequate force of the Haryana police, three companies of paramilitary personnel have been deployed to ensure law and order.

The farmers were sitting in protest at Jaisinghpur Kheda area in Rewari along Rajasthan-Haryana border (NH-48). Gurgaon is over 70 km from the site while Delhi is nearly 80 km away.

Swaraj India chief Yogendra Yadav, who was at the site, said since the barricades have been put, the farmers had no option but to stage a sit-in.

A farmer from Rajasthan who was among those who wanted to march to Delhi against the Centre’s new farm laws said they will “force the government to rollback the anti-peasant legislations.”

Earlier, the farmers had threatened to block the Jaipur-Delhi highway.
Thousands of farmers have been protesting at various border points of Delhi for over a fortnight demanding repeal of the new farm laws.

Enacted in September, the three farm laws have been projected by the government as major reforms in the agriculture sector that will remove the middlemen and allow farmers to sell their produce anywhere in the country.

However, the protesting farmers have expressed apprehension that the new laws would pave the way for eliminating the safety cushion of Minimum Support Price and do away with the mandi system, leaving them at the mercy of big corporates.