Demanding more compensation for land, farmers block rail traffic

Batala, April 2

In a novel protest, nearly 400 farmers gathered at the Batala railway station this morning, took off their shirts or kurtas and staged a dharna on railway tracks, disrupting passenger and goods traffic on the Amritsar-Pathankot route.

They were protesting, among other things, against insufficient compensation being offered to them for the acquisition of their land for the Delhi-Katra expressway and against non-payment of sugarcane arrears.

SSP Ashwini Gotyal got information about the protest last evening and convened a meeting of police officers and farmers, but the latter, led by Sarwan Singh Pandher, refused to call off their protest. “We tried our best. We are still trying to get the dharna lifted,” she said.

This morning as word spread that the adamant farmers were not willing to relent, the SSP dispatched SP (Investigation) Gurpreet Singh to the protest site to negotiate. Confabulations between the police and the protesters continued throughout the day, but nothing tangible was achieved.

A farm leader said disrupting rail traffic was the only option left before them as all other forms of protests had failed to evince any reaction from the state government.

“We have exhausted all other forms of protest. This is the only way by which the government may lend an era to our demands,” he said.

Residents said farmers were taking things a bit too far by regularly laying siege to national highways and railway tracks.

The protest will continue till tomorrow morning. “We will lift our dharna at 7 am tomorrow. However, we may disperse tonight if we are given a concrete assurance by government officials,” said a farm leader.

Sources say 24 trains pass through the Batala railway station throughout the day. An official said commotion prevailed among commuters, some of whom were to travel long distances. “They kept on asking the exact time when the protest would end and trains would start running,” he said.