BHOPAL: Just about a half-hour drive from the heart of the city, where barricades say ‘
Bhopal Traffic Police
’, a farmer flare-up took police by surprise on Friday and left smouldering indications that violence may be creeping closer to state capital.
Farmers started gathering at Phandakala village, 25km from the city, around 11 am but there was no indication of the streetfight that was to follow. Police, too, started gathering in force. For about three hours, it was a tense stand-off as the motley group of farmers blocked the busy Bhopal-Indore highway.
As the crowd swelled, the agitators tried to march beyond the restricted point. Police charged in and bundled away a handful of Congress workers under the leadership of Avneesh Bhargav. The farmers scattered.
A few minutes, they regrouped from Tumbada, Chandoli and Teele Khedi villages. Most of them were youngsters, some looked like they were minors.
Around 11.30am, police received information that some protesters had gathered near the diversion of Tumbada village on Bhopal Sehore road and were pelting stones.
That was the beginning of three hours of violence, in which a police officer had to flee to save his life, pistol in hand, as grinning protesters hurled bricks at him.
Police fired tear gas and resorted to lathicharge but the farmers continued to hurl stones.
They would scatter and regroup at another place, taunting cops and targeting them from different directions between Phanda Kala village and Phanda toll. Stones and burning cycle tyres littered the road.
Policemen would chase one group of protesters and cane them, only to come under attack from another group. The glee with which the protesters — some of them barely in their teens — attacked police showed that mob mentality has taken over the agitation.
Some 200 policemen, including senior officers such as SP, CSP and police inspectors, kept charging farmers but they came back every time. Anger grew when some cops wrecked people’s vehicles parked in Phanda village and nearby areas.
Some STF personnel damaged the vehicle of a differently abled person at Tumbda railway gate.
Some policemen also smashed the window panes of a shop. Congress leaders Bhargav and Anokhe Patel were among 53 arrested. Two were released when they were found to be minors.
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