Late on Friday, the ‘farmer protesters’ paraded a masked man before the media who claimed that there was a sinister plot to eliminate four farmer leaders and cause disruption on the 26th of January. The masked man claimed that his team was given weapons and alleged that the police were involved in the giant conspiracy. That was Friday. On Saturday, however, the masked man has made revelations that would give everyone cause for immense concern.
Who is the masked man?
The masked man has been identified as Yogesh Singh, a resident of Sonepat in Uttar Pradesh. He ended up in the captivity of the ‘farmers’ after he informed some of them that a girl was being harassed near the protest site. For some reason, they mistook him for the one misbehaving with the ladies and took him into their custody. This happened on the 19th of January.
The extent of the torture Yogesh suffered
Yogesh said that he was beaten quite a lot and at one point, was stripped naked and hung on the top of a trolley and thrashed him with belts. On multiple nights, they thrashed him after getting drunk. They also made him drink alcohol.
Yogesh said that the ‘farmer leaders’ told him that if he wanted to leave, he would have to do exactly what they said. Otherwise, he will be killed. He also had a red-eye in the video accessed by OpIndia which makes it clear the extent of the brutality he suffered.
‘We have killed before’
At one point, Yogesh told them that they should hand him over to the police. But the ‘farmer leaders’ straightaway refused to do so. Instead, they went ahead and told him that when they kill someone, they do not tell anyone about it and just dump the corpse somewhere. The ‘farmer leaders’ also told him that they had murdered one of them.
Four others in custody
Yogesh revealed that there were four others along with him in the custody of the farmers. And they were beaten as well. One of them called Sagar, who was beaten, somehow managed to escape although the specifics of his escape are not clear.
Another was thrashed with a pipe and was in an extremely critical situation. He is still in the custody of the ‘farmer leaders’.
Yogesh was tortured to invent the fake conspiracy story
Yogesh was forced to allege that a conspiracy was underway to eliminate farmer leaders. He was beaten, thrashed and threatened in order to extract a fake ‘confession’ from him. He did not name any farmer leaders in the video.
‘Farmer leader’ Rakesh Tikait was present with him during the press conference on Friday. When the Haryana Police went to arrest the masked man (Yogesh), the ‘farmer leaders’ were unwilling to hand him over.