With hundreds of protestors pouring at Delhi’s Ghazipur and Singhu borders on a daily basis, the Uttar Pradesh and Delhi Police put up cemented nails on the road near the protest sites in a bid to prevent movement of vehicles, amid heavy deployment of security agencies personnel.
Farmers announced nationwide agitation on February 6, issuing calls to block roads.
At Singhu border, security personnel from the paramilitary forces, Rapid Action Force and Central Reserve Police Force remained deployed in large numbers on Monday to maintain law and order.
The Police however also installed irons rods on the main highway to restrict movement of vehicles.
The farmers protest site at the Ghazipur border had also been turned into a fortress with multi-layer barricades and hundreds of security personnel including the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) and RAF.
As people including farmers from Western Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan continued to join the protestors at Ghazipur border, the police also used drones to monitor the situation. Police during the day also checked vehicles standing in the area.
A senior police official said police is on alert and it is taking every step to avert any kind of incident. “We are focused towards the protection of every citizen,” he said.
Apart from the barricades, barbed wire has been installed to stop people moving on foot. Ghaziabad District Magistrate Ajay Shankar Pandey and Senior Superintendent of Police Kalanidhi Naithani reviewed the situation on the ground as they visited Ghazipur, Seemapuri and Dilshad Garden areas amid the ongoing farmers’ stir at Delhi-UP borders,” an official statement said.
Pandey and Naithani also held meetings with senior officers of the Delhi Police and the administration to discuss the situation and review preparedness, it added.
Inspector General (Meerut Range) Praveen Kumar toured Ghaziabad, where he visited the UP Gate protest site and the Kaushambi police station, officials said.
“The IG has issued necessary instructions to the local police and the police officials deployed at the protest site,” an official said.
Meanwhile, the police in Shahdara district police have been given iron batons, just like shape of word, and metal hand guard to protect themselves from attacks by sharp-edged weapons
According to a senior police official, the initiative was taken by station house officers (SHOs) of all 11 police stations falling under the jurisdiction of Shahdara district.
“Each police station distributed around 12 iron batons to its personnel. The aim is to protect our personnel from attacks by any sword or sharp-edged weapon. It is for their self-defense. This initiative was taken by SHOs of the respective police stations of Shahdara district,” he said.
Farmer leaders at the site, however, asserted that the barricades won’t cage their spirit. Balwinder Singh Sirsa, a farmer leader from Sirsa in Haryana, urged protesters not get demotivated by what happened on January 26, claiming it was “orchestrated” by some people to denigrate the protest. A woman protester from Haryana, addressing a large gathering from the dais, said the alleged conspiracy on that day failed to weaken the movement and has rather injected “a new lease of life” in it.
Randhir Singh, 85, a farmer from Haryana, said, “We are not terrorists or Khalistanis. We are fighting for our rights. Attempts are still being made to defame and weaken us.”