Farmer leader among 180 booked for protesting outside Noida authority office

Farmers from around 80 villages on Monday staged a protest against the Noida authority, demanding better rehabilitation facilities and alleging that the Noida authority has cheated them

The Gautam Budh Nagar police on Tuesday registered an FIR against over 180 people, including farmer leader Sukhbir Khalifa, for protesting outside the Noida authority office in Sector 6 on Monday without obtaining permission from the police.

Around 500 farmers, including women, reached the Sector 6 office around noon and shouted slogans against the Noida authority and the Uttar Pradesh government. Their march affected traffic on the city’s main road, Udyog Marg, besides affecting work at the authority office. (Sunil Ghosh/HT Photo)

Apart from Khalifa, police have also booked 36 identified persons and 100 unidentified men and 50 unidentified women under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code.

Farmers from around 80 villages on Monday staged a protest against the Noida authority, demanding better rehabilitation facilities and alleging that the Noida authority has cheated them by not keeping the promises made four months ago to end their agitation back then.

Around 500 farmers, including women, reached the Sector 6 office around noon and shouted slogans against the Noida authority and the Uttar Pradesh government. Their march affected traffic on the city’s main road, Udyog Marg, besides affecting work at the authority office.

After the protest was over, a junior engineer of Noida authority submitted a complaint against the protesters at the Phase-1 police station, alleging that some unidentified persons from the protesting group manhandled him and tried to strangle him.

“In his complaint, the Noida authority official said only the presence of police at the spot saved him from grievous harm. We have registered an FIR on the basis of complaint received under sections 307 (attempt to murder), 323 (voluntary causing hurt), 329 (voluntarily causing grievous hurt to extort property), 353 (assault on public servant), 147 (punishment for rioting) and 188 (disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant) of the Indian Penal Code,” said Dhravbhushan Dubey, in charge of Phase-1 police station, Noida.

He added that the case is being investigated and no arrest has been made in the matter so far.

Khalifa on Tuesday said farmers will continue their protest. “No matter how many cases are registered against us to threaten us, we will continue our protest. Allegations of strangulation and manhandling of official are false,” he said.