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NIA raids woman farm union leader’s house in Punjab’s Rampura Phul amid protest
The NIA raided BKU leader Sukhwinder Kaur's house in Bathinda, sparking farmer protests. Officials seized digital devices, alleging links to Maoist funding.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) raided the house of Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU-Krantikari) general secretary Sukhwinder Kaur’s house at Sarabha Nagar in Rampura Phul town of Bathinda district on Friday morning, triggering a protest by farmer unions who termed it as a pressure tactic of the Central government.
The NIA team, which reached Rampura Phul at 7am, searched Sukhwinder’s house for two hours though she was not present. Sukhwinder is camping at Shambhu in Patiala district on the Punjab-Haryana border, where farmers have been protesting since their Delhi Chalo march was stalled on February 13.
In a press release, the NIA mentioned that along with Punjab, it searched nine locations across Delhi, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. It said several digital devices and diaries were seized from the premises of suspects believed to have been receiving funds for propagation of CPI (Maoist) ideology from the erstwhile eastern regional bureau (ERB) head Prashant Bose. NIA investigations have revealed that the ERB, particularly Jharkhand, has been funding the suspects to recruit cadres and raise the organisation in the northern states to carry out terrorist acts, the NIA stated.
Sukhwinder’s husband Harpinder Singh Jalal said NIA officials had a search warrant issued by a Lucknow court in connection with a Maoist case registered in 2023. “They took away my mobile phone, a pen drive and some literature,” he added.
Activists of the farmer union gathered outside Sukhwinder’s house during the NIA raid and raised slogans against the central government, alleging an attempt to tarnish the image of farmer leaders and put pressure on them in view of the Haryana assembly elections on October 1.
BKU (Krantikari) president Surjit Singh Phul said, “The government is scared of the morcha (protest) at Shambhu border. The NIA team claimed they were here for investigation and not for any arrest. They searched Sukhwinder’s house and took away some of her literature. Sukhwinder is a prominent face of the union. Such raids are a pressure tactic of the BJP government, which is why we have protested against it.”
Another union leader, requesting anonymity, said: “Sukhwinder was booked under Section 307 of the IPC in 2000 during protests against the Jethuke police firing incident in which two Dalit youngsters were killed.”
Kisan Mazdoor Morcha’s (KMM) convener Sarwan Singh Pandher said “The Modi government is misusing its central agencies to target farmers. The raid’s timing coincides with the completion of 200 days of the morcha at the Shambhu border. Earlier, they gave us the Khalistani tag and now they will give us some other name. We are not afraid of NIA raids.”
Bathinda superintendent of police (SP) Narinder Singh said cops were deployed to maintain law and order during the farmers’ protest. “After talks with farmer leaders, the issue was resolved and the NIA team returned after completing its procedure,” he added.
Hundreds of farmers have been camping at Shambhu and Khanauri on the Punjab-Haryana border in support of their demands, including a legal guarantee to the minimum support price (MSP) for all crops, implementation of Swaminathan Commission’s formula, full debt waiver for farmers, pension for farmers and labourers and withdrawal of cases against farmers during the 2020-21 protest.
