Police remove barricades from protest sites; farmers assert agitation to continue

Similar clearing of roads was also underway at other borders, which triggered speculation about the continuance of the protests

After a rap from the Supreme Court, Delhi Police have removed the barricades on roads leading to Haryana on the Tikri borders, where farmers have been protesting against the three farm laws for the past 11 months.

Similar clearing of roads was also underway at the Ghazipur border with Uttar Pradesh in East Delhi, which triggered speculation about the continuance of the farmers' protests.

“Delhi Police is rectifying its mistake after submitting an affidavit in the Supreme Court. The farmers' agitation will continue as before. Farmers are present in large numbers at the protest site,” Dharmendra Malik, spokesperson of the Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU) said.

Malik said there have been attempts to weaken the agitation but farmers were ready to take on every challenge to break such efforts.

A farmer leader said traffic movements were allowed on the Delhi-Haryana stretch along the Tikri borders on Saturday for light vehicles including bikes, auto-rickshaws and cars and ambulances.

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The opening of the road stretch at the Tikri border would help thousands of commuters of Bahadurgarh and Delhi as well as those travelling between the national capital and going to Rajasthan from Haryana.

While the police removed a large portion of the barricades, wirings and iron nails from NH-9 (the Delhi-Meerut Expressway flyover) at Ghazipur border by Friday evening, the tents and other temporary structures erected by the protesters continued to remain there.

Multiple layers of iron and cement barricades along with concertina wires were put up by the police last year. The arrangements were further beefed up after the January 26 violence in Delhi during the farmers’ protest against three new agriculture laws of the Centre.

The process to remove the barricades started following the October 21 Supreme Court direction calling for unblocking of the roads that have remained out of bounds for commuters due to the laws protests at Singhu, Tikri and Ghazipur border points.

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