Tag: Ghazipur Border

  • Farmers hold ‘havan’ at Ghazipur to pray for Gen Bipin Rawat, 12 others who died in chopper crash

    By PTI

    GHAZIABAD: Farmers at the Ghazipur border on Friday organised a ‘havan’ to pray for Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat, his wife and 11 other defence personnel who were killed in a helicopter crash in Tamil Nadu.

    Besides farmers, national spokesperson of the Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) Rakesh Tikait, BKU Uttar Pradesh president Rajbir Singh Jadaun and other office-bearers attended the ‘havan’, according to the state vice president of the farmers’ group Rajbir Singh.

    A Mi-17V5 helicopter carrying Gen Rawat, his wife and 11 other defence personnel crashed near Coonoor in Tamil Nadu on Wednesday.

    ​ALSO READ | Army officers from Nepal, Lanka, Bangladesh join funeral procession of CDS Gen Bipin Rawat, wife

    As India’s first Chief of Defence Staff, Gen Rawat was tasked with bringing in theatre command and jointness among the three services, and he was pushing it with a tough approach and specific timelines over the last two years.

    Known to be forthright, fearless, and blunt at times, the 63-year-old strongly backed a policy of hot pursuit in dealing with cross-border terrorism and militancy in Jammu and Kashmir when he was the Army Chief between 2016 and 2019.

    Farmers were also busy dismantling the encampments they set up at the protest site over the past year as they got ready to head back home.

    Singh said the community kitchens will be operational till the protest site is completely cleared.

    The Ghazipur border is most likely to be vacated by Saturday, he said.

    ALSO WATCH:

    Meanwhile, a National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) official said National Highway 9 will be opened for commuters after a technical inspection of the stretch where the farmers were camping for over a year and its pillars is completed.

    Once the farmers vacate the highway, NHAI engineers will conduct an inspection and repair the damaged portions, if any, Arvind Kumar, project director, NHAI, told PTI.

    The Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM), which spearheaded the farmers’ agitation against the Centre’s farm laws, on Thursday decided to suspend the movement and announced that farmers will go back home on Saturday from the protest sites on Delhi’s borders.

    The agitation, which began in November last year, mainly drew farmers from Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.

  • Will miss protest site which witnessed our daily hardship, say farmers at Ghazipur border

    By PTI

    NEW DELHI: Om Raj excitedly shows his small diary carrying details of all the friends he made at Singhu border, while Manak Singh says he will miss the protest site which witnessed their daily hardship for over a year to convince the Centre to repeal the farm laws.

    Sitting with his friends on a cot near temporary tents set up at Ghazipur border, Raj (85) said the protest venue now feels like home and that the agitating farmers have developed a deep bond with each other.

    The farmer, a native of Moradabad in Uttar Pradesh, shows his diary in which he has meticulously maintained details of all the protesters he has befriended in the past one year.

    “See this is my tenth diary and there are hardly any pages left. I have maintained details of all the farmers I met here and became friends with over the period. We all stay in touch. The bond that we developed here has only become stronger. I also plan to visit them,” Raj says enthusiastically.

    ALSO READ | Repealing farm laws: Opposition welcomes PM’s decision but says it’s too late

    At Ghazipur border, one of the three prominent venues of the anti-farm laws agitation, protesters were filled with excitement following Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement of repealing the controversial farm laws.

    Another protestor says he will definitely miss the venue after he will return to his village.

    Asked if he ever went to his hometown during the last one year, Raj recalled that he visited his native place on just two to three occasions and returned within a few days.

    Since the last two months, the elderly farmer has set up a small venture which he starts at around 10 am and closes by 5 in the evening.

    He says the intention behind it was just to have some ‘gupshup’ (conversation) and pass the time with other farmers.

    He also showed the spread of the products for sale — bidis, matchboxes, badges and flags.

    “When the farmers get bored, they sit here and pass time. I sell bidis and matchboxes which usually fetches me around Rs 100 a day,” he said.

    ​ALSO READ | Don’t be adamant, return home: Mos Agri to farmers deciding to continue protest over MSP

    Manak Singh (77), a native of Amroha district in Punjab, says, “This spot has become our place for chit-chat. We will stay here until all the laws are repealed as per legal procedure. We will not go unless all our listed seven demands are met by the central government. This announcement by the Centre could have also been done with upcoming elections in mind.”

    Having braved severe weather conditions and other hardship during their protest, the farmers say this has only made their brotherhood and will power stronger.

    “If the government would have made this announcement earlier, we would not have suffered so much,” a protester rues. Meanwhile, a few tents away, 68-year-old Ram Kumar Sharma, hailing from Nithari village in Noida, had been serving ‘langar’ (free meals) from morning till night, at the protest site for nearly a year now.

    Sharma, who is also a member of the Bharatiya Kisan Union, says he comes around 10 am and leaves at night after the last langar is served.

    “I have been organising the langar with the spirit of social service. I will miss the farmers after they will leave the site,” he says.

    “I do not want to see anyone going back with an empty stomach. I am myself a farmer and do not want to see anyone hungry,” he adds.

  • Farmers’ protests: NH-24 carriageway from Delhi to Ghaziabad reopened for traffic movement

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: The carriageway of NH-24 going towards Ghaziabad from Delhi, which was closed since January 26, was reopened for commuters on Monday, police said.

    The carriageway from Ghaziabad towards Delhi, however, remains closed, they said.

    In view of the prevailing law and order situation at the Ghazipur border and keeping in mind the aspect of public convenience, the carriageway of NH-24 going towards Ghaziabad from Delhi has been opened in due consultation with the police officials of the district, a senior official said.

    The stretch had been closed since January 26, when violence broke out in the national capital during a tractor parade by farmers.

    The carriageway was briefly opened on March 2.

    The Tikri and the Singhu borders continue to be closed due to the farmers’ agitation.

    Thousands of farmers, mostly from Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, have been camping at Delhi’s border points — Singhu, Tikri and Ghazipur — for over three months, demanding a repeal of the three farm laws and a legal guarantee on the minimum support price for their crops.

    The protesting farmers have expressed apprehension that these laws would pave the way for the dismantling of the minimum support price (MSP) system, leaving them at the “mercy” of big corporations.

  • Farmers’ protest: Ghazipur border reopens, traffic movement allowed from Delhi to UP

    By ANI
    NEW DELHI: The Ghazipur border, which was closed due to farmers’ protests against Central farm laws, was reopened on Monday for traffic movement. However, the movement is allowed only for those entering Uttar Pradesh from the national capital.

    The decision to open the carriageway of the National Highway-24 going towards Ghaziabad from Delhi has been opened after discussions between Delhi Police with police officials of Ghaziabad district.

    “In view of prevailing law and order situation at the Ghazipur border and considering public convenience, the carriageway of NH-24 going towards Ghaziabad from Delhi has been opened after consultation with police officials of Ghaziabad District, Uttar Pradesh,” said Delhi Police.

    “Traffic Alert: Gazipur Border, Delhi to Gazipur is open for traffic movement,” Delhi police tweeted.

    On March 2, the Ghazipur border, which remained closed since January 26 following the Republic Day violence, was reopened for vehicular movement. Later, the border was closed for traffic movement.

    Ghazipur border is among those sites where farmers have been protesting since November 26 last year against the three newly enacted farm laws — Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020; the Farmers Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act 2020 and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020.

    As agitating farmers assemble at the Gazipur border and tried to break police barricades, one carriageway of the National Highway 24 for Uttar Pradesh to Delhi was first closed for traffic on December 3 last year. 

  • Ready to take agitation across the nation: Rakesh Tikait

    Express News Service
    NEW DELHI:  With farm agitation entering its 73rd day at the Ghazipur border, farmer leader and Bhartiya Kisan Union spokesperson Rakesh Tikait is not ready to budge but move ahead. Talking to Siddhanta Mishra, Tikait said he is planning to attend more meetings and grow the agitation across the country

    What is the way forward for the farmer agitation?In the next few days, we will expand the reach of our agitation and will visit programmes in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana. The protest will continue from here and I will visit other places as well. We are getting support from everywhere and will continue our agitation till the farm laws are taken back.

    When is the next meeting with the government?The government has to tell. We are ready for talks like the way they used to happen earlier. We have a committee and system in place for scheduling talks. If they get the proposal, talks will take place.

    PM Modi recently said he is just a phone call away?Formal talks do not happen like this. The Centre very well knows how to communicate to us and our unions.

    You are becoming the face of the agitation. How big is this responsibility?I am a nobody. The Samyukta Kisan Morcha is the face of this protest and the entire farming community is to be given credit for this agitation. Our main stage and our main council is at Singhu border. Everything is happening under the Samyukta Kisan Morcha. The Ghazipur protest is a part of that.

    Was there a ‘Jawan vs Kisan’ situation at some instances during protest?Both are the same. ‘Jawan’ comes from ‘Kisan’. A soldier guards country’s border, a farmer guards their farmlands. Both are in tandem.

  • Stopped at Ghazipur border, Opposition MPs say farmers are ‘denied basic rights’

    By Express News Service
    NEW DELHI: In protest against the farm laws, a delegation of 15 MPs from 10 opposition parties, led by Shiromani Akali Dal’s Harsimrat Kaur Badal, went to Ghazipur border on Thursday. But they were stopped by the police before they could reach the protest site.

    Badal said they were not allowed to cross the barricades and reach the place where protesters have gathered.

    ​“Today, 15 MPs representing different political parties from Kashmir to Kanyakumari went to Ghazipur border to express solidarity with the farmers and demand immediate repeal of the three hated farm laws. We also demand an end to atrocities being meted out to peacefully agitating farmers,” she tweeted.

    ​ALSO READ | Please understand farmers’ pain, stop your monologue: Opposition tears into government

    Supriya Sule of NCP, Kanimozhi and Tiruchi Siva from the DMK, Saugata Roy from TMC were part of the delegation. Members of the National Conference, RSP and IUML were also part of it. They later wrote to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla that they were not allowed to meet the farmers.

    “In our culture, it is called Annadata Sukhi Bhav. The farmer is our breadwinner. We all feel that for him to be happy, the central government must take a step forward and listen to his grievances and come up with a satisfactory solution,” Sule said.

    “Struggling farmers are denied basic rights, including drinking water and internet service. The government treats them like enemies,” Kanimozhi said, before setting off for the border. The Budget Session of the Parliament has seen vociferous protests from the opposition benches. Government has maintained it is open to talks.

    ​ALSO READ | Farmers’ protest: ‘Calling us terrorists is government’s propaganda to destroy our movement’

    February 6 blockade: Amit Shah reviews safety measures

    Two days ahead of the chakka jam (nationwide roadblock) called by the farmers, Union Home Minister Amit Shah had an emergency meeting with National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, Delhi Police Commissioner SN Srivastava and Director of Intelligence Bureau Arvind Kumar to discuss preparations. 

    Farmers have said they would block roads from 12 noon to 3 pm on Saturday. Sources said there are intelligence inputs that anti-social elements may try to create trouble on that day. Security officials have been asked to take measures to ensure there is no repeat of the January 26 violence in Delhi.

    ​The home minister, sources said, has asked top security officials to ensure safety and security of farmers, police and everyone else. Meanwhile, Bharatiya Kisan Union leader Rakesh Tikait said a three-hour ‘chakka jaam’ will take place on February 6 but not in Delhi.

  • Farmers denied nod to hold mahapanchayat in UP’s Shamli on Friday

    Express News Service
    LUCKNOW: The Shamli district administration has denied permission to farmers’ proposed Mahapanchayat at Bhainswal village on Friday.

    The organisers, including the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) and Samajwadi Party (SP), crossed swords with authorities on Thursday saying they would go ahead with the congregation even without permission.

    Shamli Sub Divisional Magistrate (SDM) Sandeep Kumar gave a number of reasons to deny permission for the mahapanchayat which had to feature RLD vice-president Jayant Chaudhury as the chief guest. The RLD district chief Yogendra Chairman claimed that the party would go ahead with its plan irrespective of the district administration’s nod. The RLD leader claimed that the SDM had cancelled the permission on the directives from Lucknow.

    However, SDM Sandeep Kumar said the permission was denied as there were reports of possible clashes, vandalism, stone pelting, and violence during the mahapanchayat which was expected to draw a large number of people.

    Meanwhile, Shamli District Magistrate Jasjeet Kaur clamped Section 144 of CrPC in the district in the wake of festivals. The prohibitory orders will remain in force in the district till April 3.

    On Wednesday, thousands of farmers from different villages of Bulandshahr district of western UP began their two-day 100-km march towards the Ghazipur border to support the protesting farmers. Many of them were carrying water collected from 36 communities of 36 villages in steel urns. 

    Water supply to the Ghazipur border has been disrupted, causing problems to the farmers staging a dharna there in protest against the three newly-enacted farm laws.

    “If the government stops water supply to protesting farmers, we will take it from our villages,” said the marching farmers.

    Bharatiya Kisan Union (Tikait) for National Capital Region, is leading the march. The marching farmers stayed at Lalpur village in the Sikandrabad area of the district for the night stay and resumed their march on Thursday morning.

  • Farmers’ stir: Shiromani Akali Dal chief Sukhbir Badal meets Rakesh Tikait at Ghazipur border

    By PTI
    CHANDIGARH: Shiromani Akali Dal chief Sukhbir Singh Badal on Sunday met farmer leader Rakesh Tikait at Ghazipur border and presented him with a ‘siropa’ (robe of honour), as he assured his party’s support to the farmers movement.

    Badal said that Tikait had made the farming community proud by following the footsteps of his father Mahendra Singh Tikait, a towering farmer leader, a party statement said. “He reminisced about the joint battles of Mahendra Singh Tikait and SAD patron Parkash Singh Badal for the welfare of the peasantry,” it said.

    Presented ‘siropa’ & ‘amrit’ from Sri Darbar Sahib, Sri Amritsar Sahib, to Kisan leader #RakeshTikait ji & assured @Akali_Dal_’s complete support. Tikait ji has done farming community proud by following in the footsteps of his father & towering farm leader Ch Mahender Tikait Ji. pic.twitter.com/AJz7HL6f4U
    — Sukhbir Singh Badal (@officeofssbadal) January 31, 2021

    The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) chief also met the families of farmers whose next of kin had been missing since January 26, besides those whose relatives have been incarcerated for “supporting” the farmers’ protest, the statement said.

    Badal assured the families that SAD would take up their cases and ensure appropriate legal remedies were made available to them. He also requested his party’s Delhi unit chief Harmit Singh Kalka to establish a control room in the national capital to ensure that aggrieved families were given assistance as and when required.

    The SAD leader said the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee would also contest all such cases free of cost even as he assured the families that a committee of lawyers had been established in Chandigarh and across all districts in Punjab to ensure a coordinated effort in this direction.

    ALSO READ| Republic Day violence: Delhi Police sends over 50 fresh notices to people including farmer leaders

    He requested all political parties to leave aside petty differences and unite for the greater cause of the peasantry. He said it was now clear that farmers of Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh besides those from different parts of the country had formed a united front. “We must strengthen this front further to ensure that the ‘kisan andolan’ is a resounding success,” Badal added.

    Farmers, mostly from Punjab, Haryana and parts of Uttar Pradesh, have been protesting at Delhi borders, demanding a rollback of the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020, the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020 and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020.

    The protesting farmers have expressed apprehension that these laws would pave the way for the dismantling of the minimum support price (MSP) system, leaving them at the “mercy” of big corporations. However, the Centre has maintained that the new laws will bring better opportunities to farmers and introduce new technologies in agriculture.

  • ‘The new messiah’: Rakesh Tikait is cynosure of many eyes, not just farmers

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: His tears exercised an emotive pull even he may not have envisaged, helping turn the tide for a movement that seemed to have lost both sheen and momentum after the violence on Republic Day.

    It was but a moment in time and Rakesh Tikait was the man in it.

    He was once a Delhi Police constable, tried his hand at electoral politics and been a farmer leader for years.

    But Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) leader Tikait has broken out of the confines of western Uttar Pradesh to find a space in the national spotlight as arguably the most powerful farm leader of the day.

    The two-month farmer movement against the Centre’s three farm laws was till now dominated by protesters from the fields of Punjab and Haryana who set up camp at the Singhu and Tikri border points into the city.

    ALSO READ | Bhim Army chief meets Rakesh Tikait at Ghazipur border, offers help to strengthen farmers’ protest

    Now, the focus has shifted to Ghazipur on the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border where farmers are gathering in thousands to boost the fight that seemed to have been weakening only two days ago.

    A day after the Republic Day violence in Delhi, when a section of farmers taking part in the tractor parade broke through barriers, clashed with police and stormed the Red Fort for a few hours, the farmer game it seemed to be over.

    Morale plummeted and many farmers returned home.

    On Wednesday night, the atmosphere was tense at Ghazipur.

    The Ghaziabad administration issued an ‘ultimatum’ to the protesters occupying a stretch of the Delhi-Meerut expressway to vacate as the January 26 clashes painted a not-so-peaceful picture of the peasant community.

    And then came the Tikait moment.

    As security presence at the site escalated and fears grew that the protesters would be forcibly evicted, an emotional Tikait broke down while talking to reporters.

    “The protest won’t be called off. Farmers are being met with injustice,” he said and even threatened to end his life for the cause.

    It soon emerged that the 51-year-old who was leading BKU supporters at the Ghazipur border since November 28, was no ordinary man at all.

    His call for continuing the protest against the government struck a deep emotional chord.

    Videos of his emotional outburst were circulated across multiple platforms.

    It led to his brother Naresh Tikait calling a ‘mahapanchayat’ at their home town in Muzaffarnagar on Friday where tens of thousands of farmers gathered to back the movement.

    ALSO READ | Tractor parade violence: Yogendra Yadav, Rakesh Tikait, Patkar among 37 leaders named in FIR

    The crowd at Ghazipur border that had reduced to 500 on Thursday night grew manifold over the next 12 hours, running into well over 5,000 in next 24 hours.

    The farmer movement was not just revived but further energised.

    Tikait, who has been part of a delegation talking with the Centre over the ongoing protest, is also one of the accused in the January 26 violence in Delhi that saw one farmer dying when his tractor overturned and hundreds of people, including police personnel, being injured.

    He has denied the allegations of conspiracy and demanded a judicial probe into the violence, blaming infiltrators in the tractors’ parade of the unrest.

    To be named as an accused by the Delhi Police is perhaps strange for Tikait, who served as a head constable in the force but quit in 1992-93 when he had to deal with a farmers’ agitation led by his father, the legendary Mahendra Singh Tikait.

    Born on June 4, 1969 in Sisauli village of Muzaffarnagar district in western Uttar Pradesh, Rakesh Tikait joined BKU after quitting the Delhi Police and gained prominence as a farm leader after the death of his father to cancer in May 2011.

    Mahendra Tikait, who was hailed as ‘messiah’ of farmers, had inherited the ‘Chaudhary’ title of the regional Baliyan khap (a social and administrative system in parts of north India) at the age of eight from his father.

    Going by the tradition of the khap, the title passed on to his elder son and Rakesh Tikait’s elder brother Naresh.

    But Rakesh Tikait, a BA graduate from the Meerut University, was designated national spokesperson of the BKU.

    He has two younger brothers — Surendra, who works as a manager in a sugar mill, and Narendra, engaged in agriculture.

    The father of three — two daughters and a son — has been at loggerheads with various governments on a range of farmers’ issues, including loan waivers, minimum support price (MSP), power tariff and land acquisition in states such as UP, Haryana Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh.

    He also tried his hand at elections but lost both times.

    In 2007, he contested the UP Assembly polls from Khatauli constituency in Muzaffarnagar as an independent candidate.

    In 2014, he fought the Lok Sabha election from Amroha district on a Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) ticket.

    It’s an affluent family.

    Ahead of the 2014 polls, Tikait had declared assets worth Rs 4.25 crore, including Rs 10 lakh cash, and liabilities of Rs 10.95 lakh with land worth over Rs 3 crore forming the biggest chunk of his assets.

    He also declared three criminal cases against him in the election affidavit.

    These cases were lodged in Meerut and Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh, and Anuppur in Madhya Pradesh.

    The vocal farmer leader had to spend nights behind the bars for defying public servant’s orders during several of the protests that he has led in the past decade.

    Having dug in his heels along with his supporters at the Ghazipur border amid a deadlock with the Centre over the new farm laws, Tikait on Saturday was once again teary eyed.

    But this time overwhelmed by emotion as villagers, including children, reached the protest site carrying water, homemade food and buttermilk, after he announced he would drink water only when farmers will bring it since the local administration had barred water tankers at the protest site.

    Rakesh Tikait is now the cynosure of many eyes — and it’s not just farmers.