Delhi: Protest ends, clean-up begins

“Some of the sturdier structures set up at the protest site are yet to be removed. Once those are cleared tomorrow, the rubble on the road removed, and repairs done, it might be possible to consider opening the highway to traffic two days later,” the police officer said.

Police have also cleared up most of the tents used by the force that was posted at the site round-the-clock. Heaters and coolers for police at the site were sent back on Sunday, and the remaining tents will be dismantled by Monday. “We have multi-layer barricading at Singhu — more than 200 temporary and permanent roadblocks. The roads are likely to be open for vehicular traffic by Monday evening,” said another officer.

At the protest site, in the midst of broken pieces of concrete, bamboo and straw, Gurtej Singh was packing up and getting ready to leave for Bathinda on Monday. He will take with him the makeshift home they had built at the site a year ago.

On Sunday evening, the structure made of bamboo and straw was being strapped onto a multi-axle truck. “We spent a month making it last December. It was a slow, collective effort. The walls are lined with mud that can keep the structure cool in the summer,” said Ravinder Singh from Mohali.

The house will be taken to an orphanage in Bathinda where it will be kept to commemorate the protest, he said. An artist from Bathinda painted the front walls of the structure with images of farmers and their demands.

Those still at the site on Sunday evening lit candles in memory of the farmers who lost their lives during the protest.

Meanwhile, shop owners with establishments that flank the site are grappling with mixed feelings — relief that the highway will open to regular traffic that had been rerouted since the protest began, and the strangeness of the protest site no longer being there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ld8IhzNg9Ic%5D

“It’s going to be strange for some time when the highway returns to what it was more than a year ago. It’s almost as if an entire village has been uprooted,” said Pawan Kumar, a resident of Narela who runs a kirana store not far from the main stage at Singhu.

“We had a ringside view of everything that happened here. This is something that we will tell stories about to future generations,” he said.

Some shops in the vicinity were shut intermittently over the past year, he added. Tek Chand who runs a tea stall nearby that was shut briefly over the past year, said, “We’re happy that the protestors’ work here is done, and we can get back to regular business too.”

Farmers clean up the protest site. (Amit Mehra)

Deepak Mittal’s wholesale grocery store is sandwiched between two layers of barricading that were being pulled apart on Sunday. He’s glad to see them go — the only way to get to his store was to squeeze through the narrow space between the concrete barricades and the wall of the adjacent shop.

At the Ghazipur border, police said roads will be cleared once all protesters have left the site. “We are expecting them to leave by December 15. Once the site is clear, the roads will be open for smooth traffic. We have already removed barricades from one side in Delhi. The Uttar Pradesh Police will remove the rest soon,” said a police officer.

At the Tikri border, the barricades on the Rohtak road have already been removed and the road is clear for vehicles. “The farmers had temporary setups and a majority of them have left. To ease the process, we have removed all the barricading in the area. We have only 3-4 layers of barricading on one side. We have cleared that as well. There’s no obstruction and roads are open,” said an officer.