Pilibhit farmers with ration for protesters clash with police

PILIBHIT: After the Uttar Pradesh-Delhi border, Pilibhit has now emerged as another flashpoint in the ongoing farmers’ protest. After UP Police stopped movement of around 200 farmers from Pilibhit, who were headed to the Delhi border with tractors full of essential supplies for the protesters, there were skirmishes leading to Moradabad SSP receiving injuries. Farmers, however, have claimed that the local police “acted like rioters” to stop their movement and lathi-charged them twice between Monday and Tuesday.
Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee president Manjinder Singh Sirsa, who rushed to the spot on getting the information, termed the action of the local police a “reminder of British Raj”.
With over 100 women and children, a group of 200 farmers from different villages of Pilibhit, Shahjahanpur and Kheri, who had assembled outside Kajri Gurdwara on Monday morning and started their journey for the UP-Delhi border along with 22 tractor-trolleys full of grain, pulses, wheat flour, rice, quilts and blankets, were stopped by police on Pilibhit-Basti NH 730 near Bhopatpur village on Monday. But foiling all attempts of police to stop them, they crossed the border of Pilibhit district at Bareilly-Haridwar NH-74 to continue their journey with the support of local agriculturists.
On Tuesday, the farmers, who parked their tractor-trolleys on the spot, were joined by other local agriculturists and activists of Bhartiya Kisan Union.