Farmers, students’ bodies block rail traffic to protest against Delhi violence

BARNALA: Members of 14 farmer, farm labourer, youth and students unions disrupted railway traffic on the Bathinda-Ambala section in Ambala to protest against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), National Population Register (NPR), National Register of Citizens (NRC) and Delhi violence.
The activists, including women, sat on the railway tracks and demanded rollback of CAA, scrapping of NPR and NRC and compensation for families of those killed in the Delhi violence.They urged the Union government to book Union minister Anurag Thakur, Parvesh Verma and Kapil Mishra of the BJP and ensure stern action against those responsible for the violence. They also held peace marches in many districts across Punjab.
A passenger train had to be halted at Tapa, nearly 15 kilometres away from Barnala on the Bathinda section for 50 minutes and two goods trains were also stopped due to the protest.
Sensing trouble at Shaheen Bagh in Delhi following the imposition of Section 144 of the CrPC and call by a few Hindu organisations to assemble there, activists decided to stage a sit-in on railway tracks near SSD College, Barnala. Heavy police force was deployed at the site.
“The Union government is trying to divide the country on religious lines. Members of Muslim and Hindu communities have been killed in Delhi, posing a grave threat to communal harmony and secularism in the country. We want those inciting people to indulge in killings to be be given exemplary punishment,” farmer organisation BKU (Ekta Uhgrahan) vice-president Jhanda Singh Jethuke said. According to him, a massive protest against CAA, NPR and NRC will be organised at Malerkotla town of Sangrur district on March 8.
Even though Ambala divisional railway manager (DRM) G M Singh said a passenger and two goods trains had to be halted due to the blockade, Barnala SSP Sandeep Goyal said farmers disrupted railway traffic for some time and no action was taken against them as movement of trains was not disrupted.