Farmers protest in India - 27 year old dead

Farmers protest in India – 27 year old dead. Demanding the repeal of new farm laws, the farmers rode tractors into New Delhi on India’s Republic Day, January 26. The police said, the large number of farmers at ITO came from the Singhu Border and Ghazipur and were trying to move towards the New Delhi district. When they were stopped by the police force, the large group of farmers became violent and damaged iron grills and dividers, broke barricades and tried to run over policemen, the Officers claimed.

On Tuesday, when thousands of farmers protesting the government’s agricultural reform bills, violence erupted across India’s capital city of New Delhi. Several farmers from Bilaspur area of Rampur had travelled to Delhi and Navreet, a resident of Dibdiba village, joined the agitation three days ago for the protest. He lost his life when the tractor he was in overturned at ITO in Central Delhi.

Navreet Singh, who was 27 years old died on Tuesday during the protests. He had recently returned from Australia where he was studying. His family had no idea about him joining the protesters at the capital’s borders. Manidur Chaturvedi, a farmer from Bilaspur said, “The police fired a gear gas at Navreet, one of the shells hit him on his head because of that Navreet lost control of the steering wheel. The police didn’t even help him”.

A senior Delhi Police Officer said that some farmers were driving rashly in an attempt to hit them. They saw the tractor hitting the barricades, damaged iron grills and tried to run over policemen. It is suspected that Navreet died because of the accident. The protestors had refused to let police take it for postmortem and were sitting with the body till late Tuesday evening. The statement also said that the Union had made efforts to keep the events peaceful but some individuals and organizations have violated the route.

The Indian Government had approved a plan for the farmers who had devised a plan for a peaceful march into the capital on Republic Day and who have been protesting for months to enter the city at noon. But the farmers plans turned into different direction when some protestors began marching towards the capital a few hours ahead of scheduled time, resulting in a face-off with police.