‘We’ll stage dharna with the body’: Deceased Punjab farmer’s kin dismiss police’s ‘rash drive’ theory; 18 farmers booked for murder bid

The farm leaders were arrested in Punjab and Haryana to stop them from reaching Chandigarh for a planned tractor march, said Harpal Singh Sangha, president of Azad Kisan Committee.

“We want the guilty police officers to be booked for murder and all the arrested farmers be released,” said Partap Singh, the younger brother of Preetam, dismissing the police’s “theory” that rash driving was the reason for the death.

“We have enough video proof of police officials pushing the farmers and hitting them. They pushed my brother hard and he got crushed under the tyre. We will not sit quiet,” Partap added.

The family members of Preetam Singh along with BKU Ekta Azad members are waiting outside the Rajindra Medical College and Hospital in Patiala as they don’t want a post-mortem examination of his body. The medical college authorities, on their part, maintained that an autopsy is a must in medico-legal cases.

The union members also alleged that their vehicles were not allowed to enter the hospital premises.

Preetam, a marginal farmer of Mander Kalan in Longowal, owned around four acres of land, and was a former treasurer of the village unit of BKU Ekta Azad, which is a splinter group of BKU Ugrahan. Longowal town is located in the Sunam constituency, which is represented by AAP minister Aman Arora. Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann’s native village also falls in the same constituency.

Partap said in February BKU Ekta Azad parted ways from BKU Ugrahan and remains a separate union. “We all had remained part of farmers’ movements for decades. We know how governments exploit farmers and overpower them when it comes to talking about our rights,” he said.

Preetam is survived by his wife Manjit Kaur, son Ravinder Singh, 40, who is also a farmer, and a grandson.

Meanwhile, the Sangrur police have booked 18 farmers by name and 35 unidentified people on charges of attempt to murder. The First Information Report was lodged Monday night after Station House Officer Sunam Deepinder Singh Jeji had a close shave during the clash and had to be hospitalised, according to SSP Surendra Lamba.

Sources said the police arrested three people Tuesday morning in this connection.

In the first week of August, a section of 16 farmers’ unions, comprising eight from Punjab, four from Haryana and one each from Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, and Rajasthan, had announced a tractor march to Chandigarh on August 22. The national farmers’ outfit of Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) which was not part of the march came in support of the protesters following Preetam’s death.

On Tuesday afternoon, SKM’s Punjab unit gathered in Longowal to hold an emergency meeting on the issue and decide on the future course of action.

“When it comes to the atrocities against farmers, we all are together. We had together struggled against controversial farm laws on Delhi borders and hence when the government is going high-headed, they shouldn’t think that a few unions are alone. SKM is with them,” said Dr Darshan Pal, a member of the coordination committee of SKM.

Meanwhile, a meeting of SKM leaders and officials of the Sangrur district administration and police has been on for the past two hours.

The farmers’ unions are protesting against the Centre as well as the state government over the flood relief package and other issues for which they started a tractor march from Punjab around Monday noon. However, farmers had not been given permission to stage protests in Chandigarh and were instead given a space in Mohali which was rejected by the union leaders.

In Sangrur district, around 37 villages of Moonak tehsil had been affected by the floods. However, Preetam’s Mander Kalan village remained unaffected.