Farmers protest: UP Police detains Rakesh Tikait in Aligarh | Watch

UP Police on Wednesday detained farmer leader Rakesh Tikait in Aligarh. Meanwhile, Tikait threatened to start a tractor rally to Lucknow if the government doesn’t respond to them by today evening. Farmers were marching with the demand of proper compensation for their land acquired by the government, but were stopped by the police near Dalit Prerna Sthal, after which they sat on dharna there
Tikait said, “We don’t know where they are taking us. If they won’t come out with a solution then we will start a tractor rally from here to Lucknow. We will wait for the government’s reply till today evening.”
Police on Tuesday arrested more than 160 protesting farmers, including the president of Bharatiya Kisan Parishad Sukhbir Yadav ‘Khalifa’, who were holding a sit-in at the ‘Dalit Prerna Sthal’ in Noida.
The protesters, who had gathered in Gautam Buddh Nagar from different parts of Uttar Pradesh on Monday on the call of Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), had threatened to resume their march to the national capital if their demands were not met within a week.
Condemning the police action, the SKM said it was a violation of the constitutional rights for peaceful protest and urged the judiciary to intervene.
In a statement, the farmers’ collective claimed the police had arrested “hundreds of farmers including more than one hundred women” and forcibly evicted them from the protest site.
The SKM alleged that the police “had violated the consensus reached with the farmers’ leadership on December 2, asking for seven days to allow the “Chief Secretary of Uttar Pradesh to discuss and resolve the demands”.
Additional Commissioner of Police (Law and Order) Shiv Hari Meena said that they arrested more than 160 protesters at around 1.30 pm under Section 170 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS).