FIR against Ugrahan,10 others for Bathinda clash over land relief

A day after a clash between police personnel and farm activists over acquisition of land for Jamnagar-Amritsar National Highway under the Bharatmala project at Dunnewala village, an FIR has been registered against BKU (Ekta Ugrahan) president Joginder Singh Ugrahan and 10 other union leaders.

Meanwhile, the state government has roped in two retired IPS officers to resolve the deadlock between the district administration and BKU (Ekta- Ugrahan) pertaining to the acquisition of land at Dunnewala, Shergarh and Bhagwangarh villages in Bathinda for the national highway.

A 199-batch IPS officer and former ADGP Jaskaran Singh and a 2008-batch IPS officer and former DIG Narinder Bhargav along with Bathinda DIG Harcharan Singh Bhullar, Deputy Commissioner Shaukat Ahmed Parray and SSP Amneet Kondal today held a meeting with members of the BKU (Ekta Ugrahan), including its chief Ugrahan and Jhanda Singh Jethuke at Dunnewala village.

After the meeting, Jaskaran said they discussed policy and financial matters concerning the farmers. “The union leaders have given a list of farmers who hadn’t received compensation so far. The committee has been constituted to scrutinise the names within next four to five days,” he said.

The former ADGP added that matter pertaining to the police action on farmers was also taken up. “It was an unfortunate incident. No action will be taken against the farmers. After the assurance of cancellation of the FIR, farmers announced to end their protest,” he said.

Parray said “A meeting has been held with the farmers concerned and the issue has been resolved. The possession of the land is with the administration. However, no work will start for the next four days as officials will scrutinise documents received from the farmers.”

Yesterday, several cops and farmers were injured as the latter attacked the former with stones and sticks and cops fired tear gas shells and canecharged the protesters to control the situation.