Farmers booked for raising concrete walls on NH-44

SONIPAT: Police have registered two separate cases against farmers for allegedly raising concrete wall structures and digging a borewell on National Highway-44 in Haryana's Sonipat district, close to the Singhu border protest site.

Two separate cases have been registered against those who raised a concrete wall structure and dug a borewell on NH-44, Station House Officer, Kundli, Inspector Ravi Kumar said over the phone on Sunday.

The cases have been registered under relevant provisions of the Indian Penal Code and the National Highways Act after complaints from the National Highways Authority of India and the local civic authorities, he said. He added the structure and the borewell were coming up illegally.

Kumar said the work on raising permanent structures with bricks and digging of borewell has been stopped after the cases were lodged.

After having survived the winter months at the border protest site, the farmers protesting against the entre's three agri laws started preparing from the summer, building huts with thatched roofs and brick houses with traditional architecture in a bid to beat the heat and provide shade for protesters.

Moreover, after law enforcement officials upped their barricading across the protest site, access to public utilities like toilets, water and electricity had become a problem for the farmers. But soon, they had figured out ways to help locals bring them water, dig submersible pumps and other mechanisms to fulfill their basic needs.

While the protesting farmers have been booked by authorities for arranging their own shelter for the protest sites, district administrations in Haryana and Delhi and law enforcement officials have put up permanent concrete structures on National Highways in an attempt to block the farmers from attempting a march into the Capital once again.

At Singhu, Tikri and Ghazipur borders, the police have erected permanent cemented barricades to block farmers, in addition to placing belts of iron nails studded on the roads to block their tractors. These structures still stand.

Having faced chilly winters and heavy rains earlier, the construction of these concrete structures is among a slew of measures that farmers are taking to prepare themselves for the impending summer.

Thousands of farmers, mostly from Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, have been camping at the Delhi border points — Singhu, Tikri and Ghazipur — for over three months, demanding the repeal of farm laws and a legal guarantee on the minimum support price (MSP) for their

crops. (With PTI inputs)