Farmers holding a sit-in at Masani barrage near Dharuhera in Rewari vacated the protest site on Wednesday after locals raised objection to it in the wake of the violence on Republic Day in Delhi. Most of the agitating farmers went to the Shahjahanpur protest site at Haryana-Rajasthan border.
Locals from around half-a-dozen villages around the protest site held a meeting in the morning, raising objections to the farmers sitting on dharna and causing inconvenience to them, especially in the wake of the violence on Tuesday. They had given the protesters a 24-hour ultimatum to vacate the site.
Rewari Superintendent of Police Abhishek Jorwal told The Hindu that the police mediated after the local villagers objected to the protest and allowed the farmers a safe passage. “While a majority of protesters have now gone to the Shahjahanpur protest site on Haryana-Rajasthan border, a few in around a dozen tractors decided to go Tikri border. Many went back to their homes in Hanumangarh in Rajasthan,” said Mr. Jorwal.
He added that the locals had been raising objections to the protest site for long since it had blocked the way to their dhabas and petrol pumps causing financial losses. “The petrol pump owners at Haryana-Rajasthan border too have been suffering financial losses and are objecting to the protest,” said Mr. Jorwal. However, Nehra Khap leader Satnarayan Nehra blamed it on the local politics and caste equation. He said he still stood with the farmers.
In a related development, the Palwal police have registered a case against 2,000-odd unidentified people on charges of attempt to murder and causing loss to public property, among others, under the Indian Penal Code and set up a Special Investigation Team led by Deputy Superintendent of Police, Headquarters, Anil Kumar, to conduct probe into the matter. The protesters had on Tuesday tried to run over police personnel with tractors and blocked the National Highway-19 causing long traffic snarls, the Palwal police said.
