Crowd visibly thin at protest sites

New Delhi: The crowd at the protest sites in Delhi's Singhu and Tikri borders was visibly thin on Thursday two days after the tractor parade turned violent, even though the farmer unions said it was because the protesters, who had come to the national capital to take part in January 26 march, have returned home.

Additional police personnel were deployed at the Singhu, Tikri and Ghazipur borders -- the three main sites where farmers have been protesting the Centre's new farm laws -- as a preventive measure in the view of the violence on Republic Day that left 394 policemen injured and one protestor dead.

The Singhu border, one of the major protest sites that has been home to thousands of farmers for over two months, was noticeably less populated on Thursday than what it used to be before the Republic day, or even before that. The number of tractors have reduced, and so have the protestors, while reaching from one end to the other end of the street, that were chock-a-block till last week, can be now done in no time. Farmers said it was because the protestors who had come to Delhi specifically to participate in the tractor parade on January 26 have returned home.

"There is no dearth in our spirits to continue our fight against the three farm laws. The fact that Singhu looks empty is a mere optical illusion. "Just because there were too many people in the run up to the parade, now that they have gone back, it looks like this," said Baldev Singh, general secretary, All India Kisan Sabha. The Sanyukta Kisan Morcha, however, on the eve of Republic Day had announced that all the farmers, who would join the tractor march, would stay back and living arrangements would be made for them.