Protesting farmers on Sunday staged rail roko (blocking the railways) agitations at 62 locations across Punjab, in response to a call given by the Kisan Mazdoor Morcha and the Samyukt Kisan Morcha (Non-Political), reported The Indian Express. At least five other farmers’ unions were involved in organising the protests.
The demonstrations, to push for a law guaranteeing a minimum support price for agricultural commodities, began at noon and lasted till 4 pm. In Punjab, protests were held at Mullanpur, Samrala and Jagraon railway stations in Ludhiana, Devidaspura and Jahangir in Amritsar and Jalandhar Cantonment, among others.
A minimum support price is the rate at which the government buys farm produce and is based on a calculation of at least one and a half times the cost of production incurred by the farmers.
Rail rokos were also held at Mansa, Sangrur, Bathinda, Barnala, Fazilka, Shambhu, and Patiala railway stations. At least nine inter-city trains were cancelled due to the protests in Punjab, in the Ambala division of the railways, the Hindustan Times reported. In all, the schedules of 49 trains were affected.
Apart from these, eight trains were short-terminated at stations other than their final destinations including two Amritsar-Delhi trains, while seven trains were short-originated.
Several farmers were allegedly detained by the Haryana Police in the towns of Dabwali and Ellenabad as they made their way to protest sites. Protestors were also detained in Rajasthan’s Dausa, The Indian Express reported.
After the last round of negotiations between farmers’ leaders and the Centre ended on February 18, the protesting farmers’ groups rejected the Centre’s proposal of buying five crops at minimum support price through cooperatives and said that they will resume their march to Delhi.
Thousands of farmers remain camped at locations on the Punjab-Haryana border, mainly at Shambhu and Khanauri. The Haryana Police has barricaded its borders with concrete blocks, nails and barbed wire to prevent the farmers from marching to the capital.
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