Farmers' protest | Seize earthmoving equipment at borders: Haryana DGP asks his Punjab counterpart
Farmers' protest: Haryana police on Tuesday evening urged their Punjab counterparts to seize bulldozers and other armoured earthmoving equipment at the interstate borders. The Haryana Police also urged to stop women, children and journalists at least 1 km away. This comes as farmers prepare to march to New Delhi on Wednesday morning, having rejected the Centre's five-year MSP proposal.
Notably, Haryana DGP SS Kapur forwarded a letter written by IG (Law and Order) HS Doon to his Punjab counterpart Gaurav Yadav, anticipating that the protesting farmers would attempt to break the multilayer barricade in place since the beginning of the protest.
“As you are aware, certain farmer unions are protesting and camping at Shambhu border, Ambala, and Datasingh (Khanauri) border, Jind, since February 13, 2024. Credible inputs have been received that the protestors may keep women, children and senior citizens in the front so that the police can be deterred from taking legal action," the letter read.
"If farmers resort to forcefully removing the barricades then the police will have no other option but to take legal action against them and this may lead to avoidable risk of injury/hardship to women, children and senior citizens. To avoid such happening, it is requested that the women, children and senior citizens may kindly be stopped at a safe distance (minimum 1 km) from the conflict points on the interstate borders in the interest of their safety,” it added.
In another letter Haryana DGP said, “It is reliably learnt that heavy earthmoving equipment including Poclain, JCB etc. that have been further modified/ armour-plated have been acquired by protesting farmers and have been deployed at border locations where the protesters are camping right now. These machines are meant to be used by the protesters to damage the barricades, thereby posing serious danger to the police and paramilitary forces deployed on duty and are likely to compromise the security scenario in the state of Haryana.”
“In view of the above, you are requested to take all necessary steps to immediately seize these machines from the protesting sites at the borders and take all preventive steps so that the Poclain/JCB machines and other heavy machinery which may cause harm to security forces are not allowed to reach the protesting sites. Further, the owners/operators of such equipment may be strictly warned to not provide the services of their equipment to the protesting farmers as the same would amount to the criminal act and they would be criminally liable for the same. This may please be dealt with on top priority being a matter of utmost urgency,” the letter further read.
In response to the requests, Punjab DGP Gaurav Yadav directed all SSPs and police commissioners to keep heavy earthmoving equipment from reaching the Khanauri and Shambhu borders.
“In the daily morning group call of the undersigned held with all district police chiefs at 8.15 am, it was reiterated by the undersigned on 18-02-2024 that no JCBs, Poclains, Tippers, Hydras and other heavy earthmoving equipment should be allowed to reach the Punjab-Haryana border at Khanauri and Shambhu. However, despite the above instructions, one Poclain machine reached the Shambu border at 3.00 pm today,” DGP Yadav wrote.
He went on to say that the special DGP for law and order had been instructed to ensure that the excavator was removed from the dharna site immediately.
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