WEB DESK
Police have removed protesting farmers from Red Fort premises where they had barged in after deviating from their planned route for the tractor parade and hoisted flags at the iconic monument in the national capital today.
Chaos reigned for nearly 90 minutes as some protesters, including ‘Nihangs’ (traditional Sikh warriors), forced their way into the Red Fort and hoisted a flag from the staff from which the prime minister unfurls the tricolour on Independence Day.
The police later resorted to lathi-charge to vacate the Red Fort premises. Continuous announcements were being made asking the protesters to leave the complex peacefully. Earlier, the farmers had deviated from the designated route for the proposed tractor parade against the new farm laws and moved toward ITO in central Delhi.
The farmers tractor parade went out of control on Tuesday as unruly protesters broke barricades across borders and inside Delhi to march into the capital’s arterial roads from all sides and park at Red Fort.
Protesting farmers clashed with police at several places in the national capital and entered the iconic Red Fort and ITO in the heart of national capital, with hundreds of them deviating from pre-decided routes, prompting security personnel to resort to lathicharge and tear gas. Chaotic scenes were witnessed at ITO, where hundreds of protesters could be seen chasing police personnel with sticks and ramming their tractors into the buses parked by police. At the ITO, a bus was vandalised by angry farmers. Police on Tuesday fired tear gas shells and lathicharged farmers when they clashed with the force in parts of city Police used tear gas on groups of farmers and resorted to baton charge as protestors broke past barricades with tractors at different border points and did not take the pre-decided routes for their march in the national capital.
The Delhi Police had given permission to farmers protesting the three farm laws to hold their tractor parade on selected routes only after the official Republic Day parade on the Rajpath concludes. However chaos ensued as the farmers were were adamant on heading towards central Delhi. In the morning, groups of protesting farmers camping at Singhu and Tikri border points of the national capital broke police barricades to force their way into the city. The ITO resembled a war zone as restive crowds of farmers and uniformed security personnel could be seen in the area. Police fired tear gas shells at hundreds of farmers who wielded sticks and clubs and entered ITO, a few kilometres away from Parliament, in an effort to move towards Rajpath.