Chandigarh: Farmers from several parts of Punjab came together at the Mohali-Chandigarh border to initiate a three-day nationwide protest to secure a legal guarantee of minimum support price on Sunday.
Officials said that heavy security arrangements were made in anticipation of the protest organised under the banner of Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM). Traffic on some roads, they said, was rerouted to accommodate the demonstrators.
Farmers have been demanding the withdrawal of cases filed against them during the 2020-21 stir against the now-repealed farm laws, compensation and jobs for any one of the family members of farmers who died during the stir, debt waiver, and pension. The Samyukta Kisan Morcha is an umbrella body of various farmer unions. Farmers have announced they will march to Raj Bhavan in Chandigarh to give a memorandum of their demands to the Punjab governor.
Farmers from many parts of Punjab including Ludhiana, Ferozepur, and Sangrur on Sunday began gathering on the Mohali-Chandigarh border along Phase-11 in Mohali and the IISER Chowk road.
They were seen coming on tractor trolleys with a cargo of essential items such as ration, bedding, utensils, cooking gas, and cylinders for the three-day protest. Bharti Kisan Union (Lakhowal) general secretary Harinder Singh Lakhowal said hundreds of farmers have already reached the protest site and many are still on their way on tractors.
A farmer said he had left his village in Ferozepur around noon on Saturday and reached the Mohali-Chandigarh border around 2 am. The Punjab and Chandigarh Police have beefed up security near the Mohali-Chandigarh border erecting barricades and stationing water cannons.
The Chandigarh Police in a traffic advisory said the roads from the Faidan barrier on Purv Marg leading towards the Shaheed Bhagat Singh International Airport in Mohali will be closed temporarily in view of the stir till November 28.
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