already(EIRNS) – Three tractor rallies by protesting farmers inside Delhi, involving as many as 10,000 tractors, turned violent today, as some farmers moved away from the agreed-upon routes. Two days earlier, the Delhi Police, in consultation with the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), the protesting farmers’ negotiating union, had granted permission for the tractor rally, on the condition that protesters enter Delhi only after the government’s Republic Day parade on Rajpath ends, Indian media reported.
Subsequently, SKM said in a statement that the tractor parade was “infiltrated by anti-social elements” and has dissociated itself from groups which deviated from the decided-upon route. The complete statement condemned the “undesirable and unacceptable events” that took place today, and said it disassociates itself “from all such elements that have violated our discipline.” Later in the evening, SKM called off the tractor rally and urged protesters across Delhi to return to the demonstration sites at the borders of Delhi.
This is the first time that farmers, who have been protesting at the borders for two months against the Center’s (the government’s) farm laws, have entered Delhi, The Wire noted. Protesters were tear-gassed and baton-charged by the intervening police shortly after they pushed down barricades at the borders this morning and stormed into the heart of the city amid celebrations for the 72nd Republic Day.
