Police in the northern state of India detained hundreds of farmers and used bulldozers to tear their temporary camps in a border area, where they protested to demand better crop prices for more than a year.
Farmers camped on the border around Haryana since last February, when security forces stopped their March towards the capital, New Delhi to press for the legally supported guarantee of more state support for crops.
Nanak Singh, a senior police officer, said, “We did not need to use any force because there was no resistance.” ANI News agency about Wednesday night withdrawal action. “The farmers cooperated well and they sat in the buses themselves.”
He said that the farmers were given prior notice.
Television images showed police using bulldozers to demolish tents and steps, while farmers escorted to carry individual goods to vehicles.
The media said that hundreds of detained farmers leaders Sarwan Singh Pandar and Jagjit Singh Dalwale, later moved into an ambulance as they were on indefinite protests for months.
Rakesh Tikit, a spokesman of the Kisan Group Bharatiya Kisan Union, said, “On one hand the government is talking to farmer organizations and on the other hand he is arresting them.”
The ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) of Punjab, who authorized eviction, said it was standing in their demands by the farmers, but asked them to make their complaints with the federal government.
“Let’s work together to protect the interests of Punjab,” the party’s vice -president in the state, Tarunpreet Singh Saund, said the obstruction of the major roads has hurt the state’s economy. “Closing highways is not a solution.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government was forced to cancel some agricultural laws in 2021 after a year’s protest by farmers in 2021 when they camped outside Delhi for months.
Federal government officials met the leaders of farmers on Wednesday, Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) vice -president Fatehjung Singh Bajwa said in Punjab.
“It is clear that this arrest is a deliberate attempt to disrupt the ongoing dialogue between the farmers and the BJP leadership,” he added to a post on X.
