Farmers open service road at Ghazipur border closed for 11 months
Darpan News Desk IANS, 21 Oct, 2021 10:35 AM
New Delhi, Oct 21 (IANS) Farmers protesting on the Ghazipur border at Delhi for the last 11 months against the three farm laws enacted by the Centre last year, have started to open the service lane to ease the traffic. They said it is the police who have closed the road and not them. Farmers belonging to the Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) on Thursday started removing the tents built on the service road to start the traffic movement.
Farmers have claimed that wrong information is being spread about them in the Supreme Court. "We had never closed the road, we wanted to go to Delhi. The police did not allow us to go across the border," the farmers said.
The farmers have removed the media centre on the Ghazipur border, while they have parked their vehicles near the police barricade.
Meanwhile, a meeting of the Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) is going on at the Singhu border, in which a decision can be taken to open the roads.
The Delhi Meerut Expressway from the Ghaziabad side to Delhi is completely closed due to the farmers' agitation for the last 11 months, due to which lakhs of people are facing problems in commuting every day.
Earlier on Thursday, the Supreme Court reiterated that farmer groups have the right to protest, but they cannot keep roads blocked indefinitely. The top court sought a response from the Samyukt Kisan Morcha, an umbrella body of farmer unions, and other farmer unions on a petition filed by a Noida woman.
The demand made by citizens primarily mirrored their right to clean air and the right to breathe, underlining the reality that Punjab is home to some of India's most polluted towns, including Mandi Gobindgarh, Amritsar, Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Khanna, and Patiala.
The case was assigned to the division bench of Justices A.G. Masih and Ashok Kumar Verma. Earlier, the case was being heard by the bench of Justices Rajan Gupta and Ajay Tewari but the latter recused himself from hearing the case on September 1.
Furnishing details about the incident, Additional DCP-2 Nishant Gupta told IANS that they had received information about a firing incident in the northeast Delhi area on October 1.
The activists of Punjab Congress will walk towards Lakhimpur Kheri in Uttar Pradesh if Priyanka Gandhi is not released and the Union Minister's son accused of murder not arrested, said state party President Navjot Sidhu on Tuesday.
Referring to police action against protesting farmers in Congress-ruled Rajasthan, the BJP leader said, "Congress leaders who are very keen to visit Lakhimpur Kheri have not uttered a single word against police lathicharge on farmers in Hanumangarh, Rajasthan."
Comparisons are on in social media whether this arrest could change the Congress fortunes as after Indira Gandhi's arrest and later in the election in 1980 the Congress returned with a thumping majority.
