A policeman, one of nearly 2,500 manning the border Tuesday, stood atop the UP Gate flyover as part of bandobast. From his vantage point in front of the water cannon, he could see a sea of increasingly impatient farmers ready to march into Delhi. One of them was his father.
The yellow barricades erected at the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border on Tuesday to prevent farmers from entering the capital didn’t merely divide the protesters and Delhi Police; in at least one case, they also drew a wedge between a family. A policeman, one of nearly 2,500 manning the border Tuesday, stood atop the UP Gate flyover as part of bandobast. From his vantage point in front of the water cannon, he could see a sea of increasingly impatient farmers ready to march into Delhi. One of them was his father.
Prime time with Ravish Kumar 3rd October 2018 । किसान क्यों सड़क पर उतरा लाठियां बरसाई गई।
“I belong to village Sisauli in District Muzaffarnagar,” the policeman, who wished not to be identified, told The Indian Express. “Nearly 200-300 people from our village were part of the Kisan Kranti Yatra. My father was also one of them,” he said. Sisauli is also the village of Naresh Tikait, the Bhartiya Kisan Union leader who was heading the protests.
“I was concerned for his safety when the protesters became violent and police started using teargas and water cannons to disperse them. I couldn’t contact him at that time, and it was only much later that I found out that he and other relatives of mine were alright. Tab ja ke chain ki saans li (It was only then that I felt relief),” the officer added. There were other cases too on Tuesday, when officers found themselves against their acquaintances. In one incident, a group of farmers who had come from village Fugana in Muzaffarnagar to participate in the march, went over for dinner to the house of a Delhi Police officer, who was their relative.
