Amid complaints of petty crime, farmers turn security guards
New delhi: Even as security personnel continue to maintain vigil across the dozens of barricades installed at the Singhu border, a couple of protestors, during the night hours, take it upon themselves and patrol the border area or carry out pehredaari as per shifts in order to keep miscreants at bay.
According to farmers, around five to six persons are assigned to every tractor, who stand guard and ensure that no "anti-social element infiltrates the protest movement or carries out the theft of phones or batteries installed inside their vehicles".
There have already been scattered incidents of tractor and truck batteries being stolen and miscreants smashing vehicle mirrors and the likes.
26-year-old Parvinder Singh from Rupnagar in Punjab said that he and his fellow volunteers stay up till 6 am in the morning, ensuring that no untoward incident takes place during the night. "We have a wooden stick with each one of us along with our kirpans (swords) so that when we catch anyone indulging in mischief, threaten him and then hand him over to the police," he said.
Singh, however, said he does not face any problems staying up all night, especially during Delhi's biting cold, as he considers it an important part of ensuring one's own security. "There are langars that serve meals throughout the night and we store several cups of tea with us which we drink in order to stay awake and alert at all times," he told Millennium Post.
As per Singh, carrying out pehredaari here is no different than what they did back in their villages. "It's a norm in our villages where a couple of people stay awake and stand guard outside their houses in order to prevent any crime."
30-year-old Shamsher Singh, hailing from Fatehgarh Sahib in Punjab, said, "We have to ensure that no one maligns our movement for their vested interests… we work in alternate shifts where a few persons sleep inside the tractor and others maintain vigil around them," he said.
What makes these volunteers even more important for the protest movement are the instances where batteries of several tractors have been found stolen or when unscrupulous elements resort to vandalism or break window panes of the vehicles.
Said another volunteer, "We resort to several stealth strategies in order to ensure that the miscreants do not detect our presence and are successfully caught."
Meanwhile, around half-a-dozen farmers, sitting on a cot placed beside their tractor, said at least six persons sit at the same spot throughout the night and ensure that their brothers inside the vehicle have a sound sleep.
Furthermore, thousands of farmers under the banner of the Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee broke through a police checkpoint at the Kundli border and made their way to the Capital's borders to join their fellow farmers.
In addition, as the Chilla border was reopened for traffic on both carriageways, a small group of farmers remained at the border intersection on the road. Police had made arrangements to cordon off the protesters' tent and redirect traffic around them.
