New Delhi, Sep 27 (IANS) A farmer, who was protesting at the Singhu border against the three contentious farm laws, died due to cardiac arrest on Monday, the police said here.
The deceased farmer, identified as Baghel Ram, 55, was a resident of Khela village in Punjab and was a member of Kirti Kisan Union (KKU).
Another KKU member Raghuveer Singh said that Baghel Ram was not keeping well for some time and was taking rest in his tent.
The police said as soon as they received information about Baghel's death, they rushed to the spot and took him to a nearby hospital where the farmer was declared brought dead. After the post-mortem it was learnt that the farmer died due to heart attack.
Earlier there were reports of chaos due to farmer's death, but the police denied all such reports.
His death comes on a day of countrywide strike by farm unions.
The Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM), a consortium of 100-odd farmers unions from across India, 15 trade unions and several political parties have jointly called a Bharat Bandh from 6 a.m. till 4 p.m. on Monday to mark the first anniversary of what they termed as a 'Black Day' when the President of India had given his assent to the three farm laws last year.
At the Singhu border, there were a large number of tractor trolleys parked but there were relatively very few people. This is one of the places where farmers have been sitting on protest since November 2020. Around two-and-a-half km long stretch of Delhi-Karnal highway (at Singhu village), where a large number of farmers was always seen during the last few months, on Monday bore an almost deserted look. Even the two stages erected for regular speeches and rallies were almost empty.
Jagdish Singh, a farmer from Ludhiana (Punjab) said, "Trolleys are vacant because people living in them have gone to block roads at Tikri and Delhi-Haryana border."
"By evening the situation will be different and more and more people will be here," Singh, who was busy preparing food for the protesters, told IANS.
People, who were at the Singhu protest site, were seen busy either preparing food or cleaning their tents.
Security at the outer premises of Singhu protest site has been strengthened with multiple teams of Delhi Police and Central forces deployed. People going towards Singhu from Delhi have to take a long circuitous way as the entry on the Delhi-Karnal Road (at Singhu village) has been prohibited.
Manjinder Singh Sirsa, President of the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management committee & National Spokesman of the Akali Dal shared a celebratory tweet on Sidhu's release along with pictures and video on Instagram.
The situation has gotten so dire that not only are Indian doctors begging for oxygen but the hospitals are filling up with COVID19 positive patients so fast that people have been dying on the pavement outside a well known hospital in the capital Delhi.
The SKM has also alleged that the government instead of strengthening the farm sector is creating cheap labour in metropolitan areas through an agricultural crisis.
Farmers union president Ugrahan made the bold announcement that on April 21 thousands of farmers including youth, and women from Punjab would once again march towards Delhi.
