Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Wednesday said 276 cases have been registered against farmers during over a year -long agitation in the State.
“Among 276 cases, four cases are registered under serious offences of murder, rape etc. The State Government will withdraw all the cases registered against farmers except cases involving heinous crimes such as rape, murder,” the Chief Minister said while speaking during the last day of winter session of Haryana Assembly.
Responding to former Chief Minister and Leader of Opposition Bhupinder Singh Hooda who demanded that cases registered against farmers should be withdrawn at the earliest, Khattar said that out of 272 cases, chargesheet has been prepared in 178 cases. As many as 158 cases are still untraceable. The cancellation report of eight cases has been prepared and a cancellation report of four cases has been filed. The process of cancellation of 29 cases is going on, he said.
On the opposition’s demand that compensation and a government job should be given to the family of those who died during the agitation against three central farm laws, the Chief Minister said that at present, talks are going on with the farmers on the issue.
“According to the CID report, the postmortem of 46 farmers has been done. During interaction with farmers, it had been informed that the tally of deceased farmers of Haryana is 73.
The investigation in this matter is still going on and the decision regarding compensation will be taken after verifying the tally of deceased farmers, Khattar said.
During the agitation which began in November last year, the protesting farmers had been booked under sedition, attempt to murder, rioting, unlawful assembly, criminal intimidation, damage to public property among other charges in various districts of Haryana.
Notably, the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), an umbrella body of 40 farmers’ unions had announced to suspend over a year-long farmers’ protest on December 9 after the Centre had repealed the three contentious farm laws.