Farmers on Monday are holding an agitation over the violence in the Lakhimpur Kheri district in Uttar Pradesh on October 3.
As many as 50 trains across 130 locations in Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan were affected due to the farmers’ ‘rail roko’ agitation against the Lakhimpur Kheri violence, a railway official said according to news agency ANI. However, no train was stopped in Uttar Pradesh, where the administration has warned of strict measures against those who are found disrupting normalcy, said additional director general of police (law and order) Prashant Kumar, ANI also reported.
Farmers on Monday are holding an agitation over the violence in the Lakhimpur Kheri district in Uttar Pradesh on October 3. The violence resulted in eight deaths, including those of four farmers, after a vehicle ran over the cultivators.
The six-hour ‘rail roko’ protest will conclude at 4pm. The protesting farmers have been demanding that Union minister of state for home affairs Ajay Mishra and accused his son Ashish Mishra of sitting in the vehicle that mowed down the farmers. Both Ajay Mishra and his son have refuted the allegations. The Union minister has claimed that they have evidence to prove his son was at a different event at the time of the incident in Lakhimpur Kheri. Ashish Mishra was arrested and sent to jail on October 9.
In the North Western Railway (NWR) zone, train traffic was affected in some sections in Rajasthan and Haryana with two trains cancelled, 13 partially cancelled and one diverted due to the protest, according to a PTI report. In Rajasthan, train movements at Hanumangarh and Sriganganagar under the Bikaner division were affected due to the agitation.
The trains that were affected in the Northern Railway zone include the Chandigarh-Ferozepur Express. Its scheduled departure from Ludhiana was 7am but it has been stranded there due to a blockade in the Ferozpur-Ludhiana section.
The agitation has been called by the Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM), an umbrella body of farmers’ unions, which has been spearheading the farmers’ agitation since last year against the Centre’s three farm laws enacted last year.
(With agency inputs)
