Farmers suspend march for day after some suffer injuries due to teargas shells

Tear gas being used by security personnel to disperse farmers moving towards barricades during their foot march to Delhi, at Shambhu border in Patiala, Punjab on Friday. (Courtesy: PTI Photo)

Protesting farmers on Friday suspended their foot march to Delhi for the day after a few of them suffered injuries due to teargas shells lobbed by security personnel, according to a Punjab farmer leader.

"We have called back the 'jatha' for today in view of the injuries suffered by a few farmers," Sarwan Singh Pandher said.

The farmer leader claimed that five to six protesting farmers were injured due to the teargas shelling by Haryana security personnel.

The two forums of the farmer bodies, the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (Non-Political) and the Kisan Mazdoor Morcha, will decide the next course of action after a meeting, he added.

A 'jatha' of 101 farmers on Friday began its foot march to Delhi from their protest site at the Shambhu border but was stopped a few metres away by multilayered barricading erected by Haryana security personnel.

The security personnel lobbed multiple rounds of teargas shells in order to disperse the protesting farmers and force them to go back to their protest site.

Farmer leaders claimed that some farmers were injured and were taken to a hospital.

The Haryana Police has asked the protesting farmers not to proceed further and cited a prohibitory order clamped under Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS).

The Ambala district administration has banned any unlawful assembly of five or more persons in the district.

The farmers were marching to force the Centre for a legal guarantee for minimum support price for crops.

A few farmers holding their unions' flags pushed the iron mesh put up by the security personnel down the bridge constructed over the Ghaggar river.