Pack up: Long day for farmers at Singhu as they dismantle a makeshift town

The Samyukt Kisan Morcha had on Thursday announced the suspension of the protest that began over a year ago to seek the repeal of the Centre's farm laws. Farmers chant 'Bole So Nihaal' to pump themselves up as they prepare to go back.

New Delhi: Ladders, tarpaulin, poles and ropes lay scattered at the Singhu border protest site on Friday as farmers dismantled tents, bundled up their belongings and loaded them onto trucks.

Time and again, they chant 'Bole So Nihaal' to pump themselves up.

The Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM), an umbrella body of 40 farmers' unions, had on Thursday announced the suspension of the protest that began over a year ago to seek the repeal of the Centre's farm laws.

Weeks after the government withdrew the contentious laws, the farmers will head home on Saturday morning.

The young and elderly joined hands to dismantle the sturdy temporary structures they had erected on a long dusty stretch of the Delhi-Karnal road over the past year.

Jassa Singh, 69, a farmer from Punjab's Faridkot said, "More men means it will be over quickly. We had ample time to build them, but we leave tomorrow. Hence, the haste... I have eaten a lot of ghee in my life. My muscles are as good as of a 30-year-old man."

As the men bundled up the clothes and mattresses and swiftly loaded them onto the trucks, women prepared lunch.

"The gas stoves and the utensils will be packed at last. We still have to cook dinner and tomorrow's breakfast," said Mai Kaur, 61, from Jalandhar in Punjab.

Cardboard, thermocol, iron wire mesh, PVC sheets and mosquito nets lay around the dismantled structures.

The youngsters inspected the tractors, cleaned the trolleys in preparation for the journey back home.

They stop to have lunch or tea or a snack and return to work.

PTI