Borders fortified, net, supplies cut off, but resolve strong

New Delhi: With support for BKU leader Rakesh Tikait swelling in tandem with the increasing number of protesters arriving in the hundreds at the Ghazipur border site, law enforcement authorities having already withdrawn additional forces are now trying their best to intimidate protesters from entering the Capital by putting up as much barricading as possible.
The main highway leading to the Ghazipur protest site from Delhi is dotted with buses full of paramilitary personnel, with Delhi Police officials supervising security arrangements. In the middle of the flyover beyond which the Kisan Ekta Zindabad protest stage is, there are two layers of barricading. Behind that, there are two more layers of blockades made with concrete bricks — and between these two layers, the Delhi Police has poured fresh concrete, creating a solid concrete barricade — intended to stop protesters from entering the Capital. In addition, law enforcement officials have placed concertina barbed wire across the breadth of the road.
According to the Ghaziabad administration, senior officials and police officers are regularly monitoring the situation at the Ghazipur border.
Vehicles proceeding towards and coming from the protest site are being checked while drones have been deployed for aerial monitoring at the site, officials said.
"The situation is under control and is being regularly monitored," an officer of the district administration said.
Around 3,000 security personnel including those from the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC), Rapid Action Force (RAF) in anti-riot gears and civil police, were deployed at the protest site, according to officials.
Three super zonal magistrates, 14 zonal magistrates and 34 sector magistrates from the administration besides senior police officers are on the ground where law and order is under control, Ghaziabad District Magistrate Ajay Shankar Pandey told a wire agency.
Internet services will remain suspended till Sunday night in view of the Centre's order to maintain public safety and averting public emergency, the administration has said.
Mobile toilets have also been stationed at the protest site and water facilities have been restored, Pandey said, adding the situation was being monitored at the border. The Delhi Traffic Police has said to-and-fro movement on the National Highway 24 (Delhi-Meerut Expressway) has been closed.
Despite this, the Ghazipur border protest site, which has recently taken over from Singhu as the focus of the farmers' agitation against the Centre's three farm laws, protesters revelled in the swelling numbers — defiantly celebrating their movement and their leader Tikait's addresses to them.
Farmers from western Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand as a turban-clad Rakesh Tikait led the charge for the BKU, the appeal of which coupled with a clarion call from a January 29 "mahapanchayat" of farmers in Muzaffarnagar has re-energised the stir, which was fast losing its sheen and momentum after the Republic Day violence in Delhi.
"We have an ideological fight with the government, something which can neither be fought with sticks and guns nor suppressed by them. The farmers will return home only when the new laws are repealed", Tikait asserted.
The younger son of Bharatiya Kisan Union's late president Mahendra Singh Tikait spoke as hundreds of villagers, including women and children reaching the protest site at Delhi eastern border, during the day some with water and homemade food and others with buttermilk — in a symbolic show of support for protestors. A small platform has also been set up near the stage, where villagers are leaving whatever resources they can bring.
Sunday also saw more politicians throwing in their weight behind the Tikait's growing strength and meeting him at the protest site.
Addressing the protesting farmers, Tikait said farmers believe in the Gandhian principle of non-violence and have full faith in the Constitution and appealed to everyone for maintaining peace.
"The farmers won't mind if the police even baton-charged them but if goons of political parties dare touch them, neither the farmers nor their tractors would leave the site. The tears that I shed the other day were not mine but of all farmers," he said.