Water cannons, tear gas used as farmers break barricades in Haryana

The Haryana Police on Thursday used water cannons and tear gas as farmers on tractortrailers broke through barricades at the Shahjahanpur border with Rajasthan trying to push towards the national capitalWhile farmers on around 25 tractortrailers pushed past the Haryana Police barriers others stayed behind on the Rajasthan side of the ShahjahanpurRewari border police saidFarmers have been on a dharna at the site blocking the road for several days in protest over the three new agrimarketing laws enacted at the CentreFarmer leaders at the site made clear that the protesters who forced their way into Haryana did not have their consentKisan Mahapanchayat president Rampal Jat said the agitation was going on peacefully but some of the farmers forcibly entered Hayaran which was not expected of themHaryana Police officials said a group of farmers mostly youths broke through the barricades set up by them in a bid to move towards DelhiThe Haryana Police tried to stop them using a water cannon and tear gas even as their leaders urged them not go towards the national capital they saidPolice said the group broke through the barricades with their tractors and a few of them managed to enter the statersquos territory though they were stopped after some distanceldquoThere were some young elements who came with tractors and broke through the barricades We tried to stop them and gently persuade them However they were very aggressive and turned violent They were not even listening to farmer leadersrdquo Rewari Superintendent of Police Abhishek Jorwal told PTI over the phoneAnother police officer said the group became violent and at least one of them tried to drive his tractor in a very reckless manner endangering lives of police personnel and some others who tried to stop itHe said there were nearly 25 tractors which broke the police barricades at ShahjahanpurMeanwhile farmer leaders at Shahjahanpur called for peace in the agitationldquoWe are sitting here peacefully and asking our members not to resort to violencerdquo Kisan Mahapanchayat president Rampal Jat saidldquoWe have sent some of our members to talk to those who entered Haryana to convince them to returnrdquo Jat addedNagaur MP Hanuman Beniwal said it was done by some ldquooverexcited youthsrdquoldquoDelhi march is not that important because we want to get the issue resolved through dialogue with the governmentrdquo he saidA large number of farmers from Rajasthan Haryana and some other places have been protesting on the JaipurDelhi highway for past over a fortnightThey have been sitting at the RajasthanHaryana border point since police stopped them from proceeding towards Delhi as part of their ldquoDelhi Chalordquo march against the new farm lawsThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever