150 agitating farmers taken into preventive custody in Panchkula

Tribune News Service

Panchkula, February 20

Farmers, who gathered at Nada Sahib, to protest against the Manohar Lal Khattar-led Haryana government, were taken into preventive custody when they tried to march towards the state Assembly in Chandigarh.

The police used water canon to disperse farmers as they pushed away barricades set up on the spot. The protesters were dragged into state transport buses. Subsequently, they were shifted to different police stations, including Sector 14 and Sector 20.

According to a police official, around 150 detained farmers were released in the evening. The Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU), the farmers’ organisation leading the protest, was demanding a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the alleged paddy procurement scam.

The police had made all security arrangements on the Panchkula- Chandigarh border, near the Housing Board Chowk.

The president of the BKU Haryana unit, Gurnam Singh Chaduni, who was taken to the Sector 20 police station along with more than 40 other protesters, alleged that commission agents, rice millers and officials of procurement agencies and Agriculture Marketing Board were involved in the paddy scam.

He questioned why the Haryana Government was hesitating for an inquiry into the matter.