Protesting farmers hoist flags at Red Fort

BY S VENKAT NARAYAN

Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI:

Wielding sticks and clubs and holding the tricolour and union flags, thousands of farmers atop tractors broke barriers, clashed with police and entered the city from various points to lay siege to the Red Fort and climb the flagpole on Republic Day on Tuesday.

A protesting farmer died after his tractor overturned.

While farmer leaders, who have been spearheading the two-month protest at the national capital’s border points to demand a repeal of the farm laws, disowned the protesters, one young man was seen hoisting a yellow triangular flag at the flagpole the centrepiece of the country’s Independence Day celebrations.  

The protesters were later removed from the premises of the Red Fort. 

The farmers were supposed to take out a tractor parade on pre-decided routes after the Republic Day event was over. But they breached both conditions. Clashes and lathi-charges broke out in many places between a section of the protesters, many of them young, vocal and aggressive, and police personnel. 

If police used teargas shells to disperse the restive crowds in some places, hundreds of farmers in ITO were seen chasing them with sticks and ramming their tractors into parked buses.

TV news channels flashed images of farmers hoisting flags at the Red Fort in the heart of Delhi, with hundreds of them deviating from agreed routes. Farmers commandeered cranes and used ropes to tear down roadblocks from routes approved by the police. The police in riot gear let them pass during Republic Day celebrations.

The entry and exit gates of more than 10 metro stations in central and north Delhi were temporarily closed following clashes between police and protesting protesters at a number of places in the national capital.

Farmers, mostly from Punjab and Haryana, have camped outside New Delhi for almost two months to protest against three laws that open up India’s agriculture markets. Nine rounds of talks with farmers’ unions have failed to end the protests, as farm leaders rejected the government’s offer to delay the laws for 18 months, making a push for their repeal instead.

The protesting farmers have also announced a foot march to Parliament on February 1, when the annual Budget is presented, to press for their demands including a repeal of the three new agricultural laws.

The government ordered shut down of internet services in parts of Delhi National Capital Region amid protests by farmers.