Crime Today News
Farmer leader Jagjit Singh Dallewal has not ended his indefinite hunger strike, PTI reported on Saturday, quoting one of his aides.
This came a day after the Punjab government told the Supreme Court that Dallewal, who has been on a hunger strike since November 26, accepted water and broke his fast on Friday morning.
Dallewal, chief of the farm group Samyukta Kisan Morcha (Non-Political), has been on a hunger strike at Khanauri, located on the Punjab-Haryana border.
His strike is part of a wider campaign by Punjab’s farm groups to press the Union government to accept their demand for legally guaranteed minimum support prices. The minimum support price is the cost at which the government procures crops from farmers.
“Dallewal drank a glass of water after farmer leaders were released,” Abhimanyu Kohar, Dallewal’s aide, was quoted as saying by PTI. “We want to make it clear that a false impression was being given that Dallewal has ended his indefinite fast. His hunger strike continues.”
On March 19, several farmer leaders, including Sarwan Singh Pandher, Abhimanyu Kohar, Kaka Singh Kotra, were detained by the Punjab Police while returning after meeting with a central delegation led by Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan in Chandigarh.
The police had also dismantled temporary structures from the Shambhu and Khanauri border points.
The farmer leaders were released on March 28.
A day later, Advocate General Gurminder Singh, representing the Punjab government, told the Supreme Court that farmers protesting at the Shambhu and Khanauri borders had been dispersed and the National Highway was open for traffic.
Farmers have been protesting at Shambhu and Khannauri on the Punjab-Haryana border since February 2024, demanding a legal guarantee for minimum support price.
Following the Punjab government’s submission, the Supreme Court directed a high-powered committee formed by it to file its supplementary report.
Headed by retired High Court judge Nawab Singh, the committee was set up in September to resolve the grievances of the protesting farmers.
The court also asked the Punjab and Haryana governments to file a status report on the ground situation and dropped the contempt proceedings initiated earlier against the Punjab chief secretary and the director general of police for not taking steps to hospitalise Dallewal.
Besides a legal guarantee for minimum support prices, the farmers have also been demanding the implementation of the MS Swaminathan Commission’s wider recommendations for farming in India, pensions for farmers and farm labourers, a farm debt waiver, the reinstatement of the 2013 Land Acquisition Act and justice for victims of the 2021 Lakhimpur Kheri violence.
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