Jalandhar: Farmers hold sit-in at Latifpura, want residents' houses rebuilt

Jalandhar, December 12

Farmers, owing allegiance to the Punjab Kisan Union (Baaghi), today held a protest march at Model Town and staged a sit-in dharna at the demolition site in support of the Latifpura residents. They demanded that the government compensate the affected families by reconstructing their houses at the same site.

Announce rehab plan, says Bajwa

People living in the Latifpura locality for the past 75 years have been rendered shelterless. On compassionate grounds, the government must announce a rehabilitation programme. — Partap Singh Bajwa, Leader of opposition

The farmer leaders along with residents also burnt an effigy of Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann and Jalandhar Deputy Commissioner of Police Jaskaranjit Singh Teja. They said on one side the Bhagwant Mann-led-AAP government was making all efforts to promote Punjabi and Punjabiyat in the state, on the other, it had disowned the Punjabi families who had migrated here from Pakistan 75 years ago.

They said the government should also take strict action against the police officer, who hurled abuses on the residents who were crying for help while their houses were being demolished. “The inhumane treatment of the police towards the residents was highly condemnable. The residents were publicly harassed by the police, and even many of them lost their belongings worth lakhs in the demolition drive as the police failed to cooperate with them,” alleged Gurdeep Singh Bhandal, general secretary of the union.

He said more farmer unions would reach the demolition site by tomorrow. “We will not let the state government do injustice to its own Punjabi families. We stand in support of them, and until the government agree to reconstruct their houses, we won’t move from here,” he added.

Meanwhile, in the evening, Sikh preacher Amritpal Singh also reached the demolition site in support of the residents. Addressing the gathering, he condemned the government’s action saying in the state where even if slums areas were demolished, its dwellers were offered pucca houses. In Latifpura, the pucca houses of residents were razed without paying any heed that how the affected families would survive.