Shah meets cops, security officials to pre-empt any chances of violence in Delhi

HT learns that the concern is that some radical groups may have embedded themselves among the protestors with the aim of prolonging the agitation or engaging in violence that could force the police to react.

Updated on: Dec 12, 2020, 07:25:52 IST

Hindustan Times, New Delhi | By Shishir Gupta

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Home minister Amit Shah on Friday met with senior government, police and security officials and discussed ways to pre-empt any chances of violence on Delhi’s borders in connection with the ongoing farmers’ agitation, people familiar with the matter said.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah met cops and security officials on Friday. (PTI)

HT learns that the concern is that some radical groups may have embedded themselves among the protestors with the aim of prolonging the agitation or engaging in violence that could force the police to react.

Also Read: Top kabaddi players, wrestlers lead sporting twist to farm agitation

The people cited above added that intelligence reports suggest the presence of at least 10 such groups among the protesting farmers.

The farmer groups are protesting the passage of three farm reform laws and have rejected a government proposal that met some of their demands; they are demanding a complete repeal of the laws, which the government has ruled out.

However, the government has maintained that it is still open to discussing the issues farmers have with the laws and address them.

Also Read: Farm union moves SC seeking repeal of laws

The protesting groups, which appear to have hardened their position, have said that on Saturday, December 12, farmers will block the Delhi-Jaipur highway.

Farmers have also threatened more protests on December 14.

Interestingly, right from October, the demands of the protesting farmers have included the release of “imprisoned intellectuals and democratic rights activists and student activists”.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shishir Gupta
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More

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