Farmers squat on rail tracks; services hit in four states

New Delhi/Chandigarh/Jaipur, Oct 18: Farmers squatted on rail tracks at several places on Monday morning as part of the Samyukt Kisan Morcha’s six-hour ‘rail roko’ protest over the Lakhimpur Kheri violence, hampering train movement in Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan.
The stir affected 150 locations in the Northern Railway zone and hindered the running of 60 trains causing inconvenience to passengers who could be seen waiting for long hours with their baggage.
In the North Western Railway (NWR) zone, rail traffic was affected in some sections in Rajasthan and Haryana with 18 trains cancelled, 10 partially cancelled and one diverted due to the protest. Agitations were held at Punjab’s Ludhiana, Amritsar, Jalandhar, Moga, Patiala and Ferozepur, and Haryana’s Charkhi Dadri, Sonipat, Kurukshetra, Jind, Karnal and Hisar.
In Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar, Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) workers halted the Amritsar-Delhi and the Jalandhar Express trains by staging a dharna on rail tracks. Trains were halted at Meerut and Greater Noida’s Dankaur stations by the protesters, BKU media in-charge Dharmendra Malik said.
In Ghaziabad’s Modinagar, farmers staged a demonstration in front of a goods train which already reached its destination.
The Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM), an umbrella body of farmer unions spearheading the agitation against the Centre’s Agri laws, had said, “To press for its demand for Union Minister of State for Home Ajay Mishra’s dismissal and arrest, so that justice can be secured in the Lakhimpur Kheri massacre, SKM has announced a nation-wide Rail Roko programme.”
SKM had put out a call to stop rail traffic between 10 am and 4 pm. On Monday, the SKM claimed that its leaders were detained and arrested at several places during the protest in which thousands of farmers peacefully participated. It warned that protests will be intensified further if “its demands for justice in Lakhimpur Kheri massacre are not met”.
“In Uttar Pradesh, there were many detention of farmer leaders at numerous places by the UP Police. In Madhya Pradesh, the police arrested protestors at several places like Guna, Gwalior, Rewa, Bamaniya (in Jhabua) and other places,” it said in a statement, adding protesters were also arrested in Kacheguda, Hyderabad.
Protesting farmers, including women, raised slogans against the BJP-led government and demanded the Ajay Mishra’s arrest. Security was deployed at rail stations in the wake of the protest.
In Punjab, farmers sat on rail tracks in several sections, including the Ferozepur-Fazilka section in Ferozepur city and the Ferozepur-Ludhiana section at Ajitwal in Moga, officials said. In Rajasthan, farmers held a protest on the tracks in Hanumangarh district and raised slogans against the Central and the UP governments.
At Ludhiana railway station — one of the busiest in Punjab — a person headed for Jodhpur rued that he came to know about the protest after reaching the station. He appealed to farmer leaders to lay siege to the residences of politicians rather than harassing the common man.
“They should think about the public,” he said. (PTI)