After staging protests along the Haryana-Delhi border causing massive inconvenience to the public, the farmers from Punjab are now resorting to vandalism and forceful disconnection of power supply to Reliance Jio towers to express their opposition to three farm laws passed by the Modi government.
The farmers, who had just a few days back staged protests outside the petrol pumps and retail outlets of Reliance have now resorted to vandalism of private properties belonging to Reliance Jio as a mark of protests against the three farm laws.
The protestors of various farmers’ union have shut the power supply to several Jio towers in Nawanshahr, Ferozepur, Mansa, Barnala, Fazilka, Patiala and Moga districts in the last three days. In a video shared by Asianet news network, one can see how protestors have gone rogue in Punjab and disrupting power supply in the state. A protestor can be seen cutting power supply to Jio mobile towers disrupting the telecom company’s services in several parts of the state.
https://twitter.com/AsianetNewsEN/status/1342366412384346114?ref_src=twsrc%5EtfwIn Ferozepur, the power supply to the cellular transmission towers was cut by farmers separately under the banner of BKU (Ugrahan) and BKU (Dakaunda).
We are disconnecting power supply as a form of protest, says farmers’ union
Defending the vandalism, BKU leader said that they disconnected power supply to five Jio mobile towers in Ferozepur to lodge our protest. “Our fight is against the corporate houses,” he added. BKU (Ugrahan)’s Gora Singh Bhainibagha confirmed that they cut the power connection to four mobile towers in Mansa on Wednesday and on Thursday, staged a dharna outside Jio offices.
Reportedly, the violent protestors in Nawanshahr, under the banner of Kirti Kisan Union (KKU) disconnected power supply to 11 Jio mobile towers. KKU leader Master Bhupinder Singh Wariach claimed that these black laws have been made to benefit the corporates, hence we are lodging our protest as the government is not ready to listen to us at all.
Sukhdev Singh Kokrikalan, general secretary of BKU (Ugrahan ) said they have been protesting against the corporates sector ever since the Centre came up with the three farm ordinances.
“First we sat outside petrol pumps of Reliance and ESSAR. Then we protested outside the Reliance malls and stores. We lifted our dharna from the dealer-based petrol pumps of these firms but we are still protesting at the company-owned pumps. Next, our call was to boycott Jio cellular service as part of which farmers ported out their numbers and have now disconnected the power supply to mobile towers,” said Kokrikalan.
Pubjab CM Captain Amarinder Singh cautions protestors, asks not disrupt power supply networks and vandalise Jio towers
Following the vandalism by the protestors in Punjab, Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh has asked farmers not to disrupt state’s telecom services and inconvenience citizen.
According to Times of India journalist Rohan Dua, the Punjab government, realising the dangerous situation, appealed the protestors to follow not to disrupt connect or manhandle employee and technicians of telecom companies.
https://twitter.com/rohanduaTOI/status/1342411404935012352?ref_src=twsrc%5EtfwInterestingly, while Punjab farmers are vandalising Jio towers today after Captain Amarinder Singh fanned the protests, it was Captain himself who had blamed Akali Dal for stalling progress.
That’s Captain Amarinder Singh, pleading with Punjab farmers, presumably with folded hands, to do themselves a favor. Explaining how the farmers could have tripled their incomes if only they had a chance to deal with Reliance. But alas, the Akalis rained on their parade.
Thousands of protestors from Punjab have camped at the Haryana-Punjab border for around a month as the stalemate between the government and the protesters continue. The protests which began as a grievance against the farm reforms has now turned political with Khalistani groups, far-left, Islamist groups hijacking the protests to further their political agenda.