Locals helped us selflessly, now time to honour them: Farmers on their way out

New Delhi: After over a year of braving extreme weather, the COVID-19 pandemic and living in tents on highways, farmers' unions have decided to honour locals who helped farmers during their protest at Delhi's Singhu, Tikri and Ghazipur borders.

Farmers' leaders said locals offered "immense help" to the protesters in different ways such as providing electricity and water connections from their homes. Now, it is time for them to show their gratitude towards such people and honour them, the farmers said.

Farmer leader and a member of the SKM's empowered committee, Shiv Kumar Kakka said the SKM will honour those locals who helped farmers selflessly during the course of the agitation and strengthened the movement.

"We have formed a committee to make a list of such locals so that we can honour them. Before going home, a ceremony will be held at the Singhu border tomorrow to honour them. We will garland them and present shawls and sweets," Kakka told wire news services.

Kakka said that some local residents and traders became good friends with farmers and their bond will remain intact. He said the SKM used to hold all its important meetings at the Kajaria Tiles showroom at the Singhu border. The shop owner gave the entire space to farmers.

"So we all became good friends. We can never forget this gesture," he added. Kakka said locals helped the agitating farmers in many ways such as providing water, electricity, shelter, places for holding meetings, tents and food etc.

SKM member Sudesh Goyat said at the Tikri border that a ceremony has been planned near the KMP (Kundali-Manesar-Palwal) Peripheral Expressway to honour locals who helped farmers during their protest. "We will apply 'tilak' on their foreheads and present them with sweets and shawls on Saturday," he said.

Goyat said the locals helped the farmers when the government was hell-bent on breaking them.

A leader of the Bharatiya Kisan Union Ekta (Ugrahan), who did not wish to be named, said farmer leaders are also visiting villages located near the Tikri border protest site to thank the people who supported the agitation.

But even as the farmers start packing up entire cities set up at the border protest sites, the Delhi Police has said it will take longer to remove their barricading to allow normal flow of traffic. They said they would first need to keep an eye on whether farmers are moving back peacefully and then they will need time to remove the strong barricading in a phased manner.

Some of the barricades include cement blockades on the roads, lines of police barricades and other obstructions which will take time to be removed.