The group of six students, including girls, had arrived there to render support to the farmers by singing and playing 'dafli' (tambourine), they said. When the farmer leaders objected to their presence at the site, police sent the students back, Deputy Superintendent of Police Anshu Jain told PTI.
The Delhi Police on Tuesday resorted to lathicharge and tear gas at the Singhu border after protesting farmers breached barricades set up to thwart them from entering the national capital. The police had given farmers permission to enter the city after the official Republic Day parade at Rajpath.
Thousands of farmers, mostly from Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, have been camping at the Delhi border points --- Singhu, Tikri and Ghazipur --- for over four months, demanding the repeal of farm laws and a legal guarantee on the minimum support price for their crops.
Iron rods have been hooked between two rows of cement barriers on a flank of the main highway at the Singhu border to further restrict the movement of protesters, agitating against the new farm laws.
Delhi Police on Sunday claimed that over 300 Twitter handles have been generated from Pakistan to disrupt the tractor rally proposed by protesting farmers on Republic Day.
Major roads in and around Delhi including on the DND flyover and Ghazipur border were affected from the morning rush hours till around 2 pm.
Not carrying weapons, following fixed routes and entering Delhi with tractors sans trolleys, were among the several conditions set by farmer leaders and police that were violated by participants of the tractor parade in New Delhi on Tuesday.
Tikait has been at loggerheads with various governments on a range of farmers' issues, including loan waivers, minimum support price, power tariff and land acquisition in states such as UP, Haryana Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh.
Protesting farmer leaders in the vulnerable age group Monday said they are not afraid of coronavirus and won't take vaccine jabs, even as the second phase of vaccination drive got underway to inoculate senior citizens and those above 45 with underlying medical conditions.
A 45-year-old farmer from Punjab, who was a part of the protest against the Centre's farm laws, allegedly hanged himself from a tree near the Singhu border, the police said on Wednesday.
MV Ganga Vilas will begin its journey from Varanasi and sail around 3,200 km in 51 days to reach Dibrugarh in Assam via Bangladesh, traversing across 27 river systems in the two countries, it said.
The protesting farmers dubbed the three laws as "anti-farmer" and claimed they infringe upon their basic right to sell their produce at MSP.
He was hit on the head by a stone when he went to end a traffic jam caused by the protests.
A spokesperson of the paramilitary force said troops fired after they heard a "buzzing sound of a suspected flying object coming from the Pakistani side to the Indian side" around 1 am in the Panjgrain area of Gurdaspur sector.
Farmer leader Abhimanyu Kohar, who is a member of Sankyukt Kisan Morcha, said on Sunday that farmers have waterproof tents but they cannot protect them from biting cold and waterlogging.
Security remained tight at the Delhi borders with hundreds of personnel deployed at Singhu, Ghazipur and Tikri as thousands of farmers have been staging their protests at the borders for nearly a month now. This has also led to traffic congestion forcing police to divert vehicular movement.
An IED stuffed with RDX and ammonium nitrate was found inside an unattended bag at the Ghazipur flower market in New Delhi on Friday morning but it was later defused, officials said.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday had a meeting with Delhi Police Commissioner S N Shrivastava, ahead of the 'chakka jam' announced by farmer unions protesting against the three agri laws at Delhi's borders, sources said.
Ahead of their proposed tractor parade on Republic Day, protesting farmer Unions Monday announced they will march towards Parliament from different locations on February 1 when the annual Union Budget is scheduled to be presented.
The BJP's bucket list this time includes districts such as Sultanpur, Aligarh, Firozabad, Deoband, Ghazipur, Basti and Mirzapur -- to rename a few. Virendra Singh Rawat reports.
Thousands of farmers camping at the Tikri borders are largely seen without the basic preventive measure against COVID-19 -- protective masks.
Manoj Sinha's greatest asset is his capacity to get on with everyone regardless of political affiliation, notes Aditi Phadnis.
The Delhi government has approved the withdrawal of 17 cases registered during the anti-farm law stir, including one involving last year's Republic Day violence, a senior official said on Tuesday.
Farmer leader Kulwant Singh Sandhu had said that 32 farmer unions from Punjab held a meeting on Tuesday and discussed the next course of action.
For the past one year, an overwhelming number of farmers have been camping at the Singhu border area of Delhi, braving by turns biting cold, monsoon rains, COVID pandemic scare and also accusations of 'creating obstructions,' but the spirt of solidarity has allowed them to soldier on against all odds.
On Wednesday, the top court observed that the Centre's talks with the protesting farmers have 'not worked apparently' and were bound to fail, and said it will form a committee having representatives of both the sides, but the agitating leaders dismissed it as no solution.
Security remained tight at the Delhi borders with hundreds of personnel deployed at Singhu, Ghazipur and Tikri where the farmers have been camping.
Farmer leader Darshan Pal accused the Centre of dividing farmer organisations, but it will not happen.
The tractor parades will start from the Ghazipur, Singhu and Tikri border points of Delhi, but details will be finalised tonight, farmer leader Abhimanyu Kohar said after attending a meeting between the unions and the police.
Farmer leaders said they were making arrangements for the women coming from different parts of Punjab. Tents are being put up, a separate langar is being planned, and extra temporary toilets are being arranged, they added.
Farmers participating in the ongoing protests against newly enacted three agri laws were not summoned by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), the government told Rajya Sabha on Wednesday.
The farmers' tractor rally - Kisaan Parade - against the farm laws was expected to be held after 12 pm. However, huge crowds gathered on the borders at around 8 am.
"They have put these barbed wires, not us. They are not allowing people to come to Delhi. We are not the one blocking the roads. If we block roads, they ask us to vacate, but no action is taken when the same is done by these security forces," said.
While the police have kept the Haryana-Delhi border at Singhu and Tikri closed for traffic, the protest at Ghazipur, the city's border with Uttar Pradesh, has also intensified.
"It was a rehearsal for the proposed January 26 tractor parade," Bharti Kisan Union (Ekta Ugrahan) leader Shingara Singh Mann told PTI over the phone.
An FSL team had visited the Red Fort on Saturday and Ghazipur protest site on Friday.
Tikait said that farmers under the BKU will not accept anything less than a complete rollback of the laws.
The farmers' agitation, which has entered its fourth week, has also led to traffic diversions at various border points causing inconvenience to commuters.
The central government has for the first time allowed a private company, Bajaj Healthcare, to process opium to extract alkaloids used to make pain-killers, cough syrups, and even cancer drugs. Two government factories in Ghazipur, Uttar Pradesh, and Neemuch, Madhya Pradesh, do the work yet, processing some 800 tonnes of opium gum annually to extract alkaloids. The government on Tuesday gave Thane-based Bajaj Healthcare an initial contract to process 500 tonnes of opium gum annually and wants production to be at 800 tonnes per annum (tpa) in the next five years, indicating the state's exit from the highly-regulated sector.
The ministry dismissed as "without any basis and unfounded" media reports that have used the term "Indian variant" for the B.1.617 mutant strain, which the WHO recently said was a "variant of global concern".
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