Agitating farmers paused until Feb 29 their march towards Delhi amid a police crackdown on a farm congregation in Haryana’s Hisar last week that culminated in a cannonade of tear gas, water, stones and sticks, leaving 15 cops and an unspecified number of protesters wounded.
The trigger for the farmer-police clash at Kheri Chopta, one of several such instances since the agitation over MSP for farm produce started, was the detention of 19 of those at vanguard of the tractor march.
Retaliation was swift, leading to an hour-long confrontation in which Narnaund DSP Raj Singh Lalka was among those injured. Two police vehicles and a fire engine were damaged in the rioting.
The clash coincided with the Punjab administration failing to break the deadlock over conducting an autopsy on the body of Shubhkaran Singh, the young farmer who died at Khanauri on the Punjab-Haryana border two days ago.
The bereaved family and farm organisations are demanding that an FIR for murder be registered against the Haryana cops involved in the firing and state home minister Anil Vij. They have rejected Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann's announcement of £100,000 as compensation and a government job for his sister.
Shubhkaran's father, Charanjit Singh, said in Patiala that he wanted justice, starting with an FIR mentioning "murder", before anything else. Farm leaders said Shubhkaran was shot in the head.