By Anushree Fadnavis and Sakshi Dayal
SHAMBHU, India (Reuters) – Indian police used tear gas and pepper spray against dozens of farmers who began marching from Punjab state along a key highway to Delhi on Friday to demand better prices for their crops.
The confrontation took place just over 200 km (125 miles) north of the capital as about 100 farmers, most from the northern breadbasket state, attempted to resume their ‘Delhi Chalo’ (Let’s go to Delhi) march, blocked since February.
Farmers broke through one layer of police barricades only to find security forces waiting behind iron crowd control barriers. There were no immediate reports of injuries.
Farmers’ leader Sarwan Singh Pandher said before the march got under way that it would go as far as security forces allowed.
“We will be only around 100 people so it is not like we can break police barricades,” Pandher said.
The farmers are demanding legal guarantees of more state support for crops and a debt waiver, and say the government must honour a promise to double their incomes.
They have been camped at Shambhu on Punjab’s border with neighbouring Haryana state since February, when police halted their march.
The Haryana government on Friday suspended mobile internet and bulk text message services in some places until Dec. 9 to “stop the spread of misinformation and rumours”, and police said “sufficient force” had been deployed to maintain law and order.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government did not comment on Friday’s protests, but Haryana senior minister Anil Vij, who is from Modi’s party, said the farmers would need to secure permision if they wanted to proceed to Delhi.
Modi’s government was forced to repeal some farm laws in 2021 after a year-long protest by farmers when they camped outside Delhi for months.
A spokesperson for India’s main opposition Congress party said it “fully supports” the farmers’ demands.
(Reporting by Anushree Fadnavis and Sakshi Dayal, writing by Sakshi Dayal; Editing by YP Rajesh, Kate Mayberry and Kevin Liffey)
