Bharat Bandh LIVE Updates: The 10-hour nationwide strike called by Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM), the umbrella body of over 40 farm unions leading the agitation against the Centre’s three agri laws, has disrupted vehicular movement at Delhi-Meerut Expressway as the protesting farmers have blocked all its carriageways. “The traffic movement has been closed from Uttar Pradesh towards Ghazipur due to protest”, tweeted Delhi Traffic Police. Moreover, protesting farmers have also blocked the Shambhu border (Punjab-Haryana border), Delhi-Amritsar National Highway at Shahabad till 4 pm.
“It was on September 27, 2020, that President Shri Ram Nath Kovind assented to and brought into force the three anti-farmer black laws last year. There will be a total Bharat Bandh observed around the country from 6 AM to 4 PM”, the SKM had said in a statement, assuring that the bandh will be enforced in a voluntary and peaceful manner. Notably, farmers have been protesting at different sites since November 26 last year against the three enacted farm laws: Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020; the Farmers Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and farm Services Act 2020 and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020. Farmer leaders and the Centre have held several rounds of talks but the impasse remains.
Traffic Alert
Traffic movement has been closed from UP towards Ghazipur due to protest.
— Delhi Traffic Police (@dtptraffic) September 27, 2021
Bharat Bandh Today | LIVE Updates
- “Entry/exit for Pandit Shree Ram Sharma has been closed,” tweeted Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC).
- We’ve not sealed down anything, we just want to send a message. We appeal to the shopkeepers to keep their shops closed for now and open only after 4pm. No farmer is coming here from outside, said Rakesh Tikait, BKU
Farmer organisations have called a Bharat Bandh in continuation of their protest against the three farm laws.
Visuals from Singhu (Delhi-Haryana) border, where protesters speak with the people moving through the area. pic.twitter.com/FzuQtRabSQ
— ANI (@ANI) September 27, 2021
- The traffic movement has been closed from Uttar Pradesh towards Ghazipur due to protest.
- The police have diverted traffic at several places as the farmers blocked the highways.
- Heavy police presence could be seen at various places in Delhi, Haryana and Punjab to maintain law and other in view of the protest by farmers
- The Bandh will be held till 4 PM. During this period, all government and private offices, educational and other institutions, shops, industries and commercial establishments as well as public events and functions will be closed throughout the country.
- Exemptions to the bandh include all emergency establishments and essential services, including hospitals, medical stores, relief and rescue work and people attending to personal emergencies.
- “Roads will be closed, but if someone wants to go to the doctor’s clinic, they can go. Ambulances, vegetable and milk vehicles will run. Apart from that, everything will be closed. All traders and shopkeepers should support the bandh,” said SKM leader Rakesh Tikait.
- Furthermore, Tikait had stated that farmers will not enter Delhi during the bandh. However, toll blocks will be closed. “This is the movement of the common people. People should take a day off and leave the house only after 4 o’clock,” Tikait stated.
- Bharat Bandh garnered support from more than 500 farmer organizations, 15 trade unions, political parties, six state governments and varied sections of society.
- State governments of Tamil Nadu, Chhattisgarh, Kerala, Punjab, Jharkhand and Andhra Pradesh have extended their support to the Bharat Bandh protest.
- Central Trade Unions will organise a protest rally at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi at 11 am. Several bar associations and local units of the All India Lawyers’ Union have extended their support.
- All India Bank Officers Confederation (AIBOC) has also extended its support to the farmers. AIBOC requested the government to re-open dialogue with the Samyukta Kisan Morcha on their demands and rescind the three contentious farm laws. AIBOC affiliates and state units will join in solidarity with the protest actions of the farmers all over the country on Monday, the union said in a statement.
