Farmer leader Jagjit Singh Dallewal was taken to a hospital in Jalandhar late at night after being detained by the police. On Thursday morning, he was moved to a guest house in a secure area. This happened as police forces from Haryana and Punjab started to remove farmers who had been protesting at the Shambhu and Khanauri border points for over a year.
Dallewal was first held in Mohali while he was coming back from a meeting with a government team led by Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. He was transferred to Patiala and then to Jalandhar Hospital. Other farmer leaders, like Sarwan Singh Pandher, were also detained.
After the police action, farmers held protests outside local government offices in Punjab to oppose the detention of their leaders and the clearing of their protest sites. In Haryana, police issued notices to farmers, asking them to report to investigating agencies regarding cases against them.
More than 100 farmers who were detained in the crackdown have been sent to Patiala Central Jail. Punjab’s finance minister, Harpal Singh Cheema, supported the eviction. He said businesses have suffered due to the long closure of main highways.
Following the eviction, security forces began removing heavy barriers at the Shambhu border, which had been blocking farmers from marching towards Delhi. The farmers had been camped there since last year when the police stopped their march.
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