Delhi Police begins removing barricading at Tikri border

New Delhi, Dec 11 (PTI) As the agitating farmers began returning home after over a year-long protest, the Delhi Police Saturday began removing the multiplayer barricading it had put up at the Tikri border protest site.

The city police had initially installed sharp iron nails on the roads at the Tikri border, one of the three main protest sites on Delhi’s outskirts. The barricading was subsequently stepped up with additional concrete barriers and other measures post the January 26 violence to stop protestors from entering the national capital.

“The process of removal of barricades have started at Tikri border as farmers have also started moving to their hometowns,” a senior police officer from outer district said.

He said the barricading will be removed completely in a phased manner.

Farmers, mainly from Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, started protesting at Delhi border points on November 26 last year against the Farmers' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020, Farmers' (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020 and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020.

These laws were recently repealed.

The Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), an umbrella body of 40 farm unions, Thursday decided to suspend the movement against the farm laws and announced that farmers will go back home on December 11 from the protest sites.

The announcement came after the SKM, which is spearheading the movement, received a central government signed letter wherein it agreed to consider farmers'' pending demands, including the withdrawal of cases against farmers and to form a committee on minimum support price (MSP) for their crops. PTI AMP TIR TIR