Mansa: Protesting farmers block administrative complex’s main gate for 7 hrs

Farmer unions lifted the dharna from the front gate of secretariat at about 8.30 pm after DC Balwinder Singh Dhaliwal agreed to the demand of Rs 10 lakh each compensation for the families two deceased farmers. Farmers have been sitting on an definite dharna outside secretariat since April 5 following death of two Mansa-based farmers — Surjit Singh (65) from Kheva village and Ajmer Singh (62) from Kahangarh village — in two different road accidents, while three others were injured when they were coming back from Chandigarh after attending a rally against state government demanding debt waiver.

Ram Singh Bhenibaga, president of BKU (Ugrahan), Mansa unit, said,”Rally was held at Chandigarh on April 3 while accident happened on April 4 when farmers were coming back. Ajmer died near Banur where three more were injured, while Surjit had died near Rajpura. Their bodies are lying in mortuary since then at the respective hospitals in Rajpura and Banur, while we have been sitting on a dharna at Mansa since April 5. However, administration has not budged at all. Since, all the dead as well as injured were from Mansa, we are staging a protest here. Farmers had gone at a debt waiver rally because government is not fulfilling its promises, so government needs to compensate their families.”

However, farmers said that the dharna will continue as the demand of one job per family was yet to be fulfilled. In addition to this, demand of Rs 2 lakh compensation for injured has also not been considered. District authorities have demanded a day’s time to resolve the pending demands, farmers said.