E-Paper
NIA raids woman farm union leader Sukhwinder Kaur in Punjab’s Rampura Phul
Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU-Krantikari) general secretary was not at home during two-hour raid, farm union activists hold protest.
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.
The NIA team, which reached Rampura Phul at 7am, searched Sukhwinder’s house 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.
The NIA officials refused to disclose any information regarding the raid.
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.
Surjit Singh Phul, the president of the BKU (Krantikari), 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.”
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.
