Punjab police imprisoned hundreds of farmers and used bulldozers to demolish their temporary camps in a border area where they had protested for over a year for higher crop prices.
Ever since security forces halted their march on New Delhi in February to demand legally-backed pledges of more state help for crops, farmers had camped on the border with Haryana.
Nanak Singh, a senior police official, told ANI that Wednesday night’s clearance action required no force because there was no resistance. “The farmers cooperated well and sat in buses.”
The farmers were informed, he said.
Television footage showed police destroying tents and stages with bulldozers and transporting farmers with personal belongings to vans.
Media reported that farmers’ leaders Sarwan Singh Pandher and Jagjit Singh Dallewal were among the hundreds detained. Dallewal was in an ambulance after a months-long protest fast.
“On one hand the government is negotiating with the farmer organizations and on the other hand it is arresting them,” Bhartiya Kisan Union spokesperson Rakesh Tikait said on X.
Punjab’s ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which authorized the eviction, said it supported the farmers’ concerns but advised them to appeal to the federal government.
“Let’s work together to safeguard Punjab’s interests,” said the party’s state vice president Tarunpreet Singh Sond, adding that crucial route blockages had affected the economy. “Closing highways is not the solution.”
After a year-long farmer protest outside Delhi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government repealed some farm rules in 2021.
BJP Punjab deputy president Fatehjung Singh Bajwa said federal authorities visited farmers’ leaders on Wednesday.
“It is clear that this arrest is a deliberate attempt to disrupt the ongoing dialogue between farmers and BJP leadership,” he wrote on X.
