The call for talks between the Indian govt. and farmers on 21 Feb turned out to be a no-show. The govt. refused to engage in talks on Minimum Support Price (MSP). After two days, the two unions leading the Chalo Dilli (March to Delhi) issued a program for the next six days. The two groups who gave the original call – Bhartiya Kisan Union Non-Political and Kisan Mazdoor Morcha – are assessing their strengths and challenges before deciding the next program. In this period, many more details on the firing and vandalism by security forces and unidentified goons in plain clothes under the cover of police on 21 Feb at Shambhu and Khanauri have come to light. The farmers groups demand the Panjab govt. conduct Shubhkaran Singh’s post-mortem and file a case against the Haryana govt. To date, the port-mortem has not been conducted, no Panjab govt. official has visited the site of the killing, and no case has been filed. The Panjab govt. has announced a compensation of $120K, which the family and unions have refused. Another person, Pritpal Singh, was abducted by Haryana police and badly beaten. He is now being treated. It is clear that the Panjab govt. could not defend its citizens from an attack on their own soil. Instead, the Panjab Director General Police lied about the death of Deputy Superintendent Police Dilpreet Singh’s death, stating that he died at the Khanauri border when the policeman in fact suffered a cardiac stroke in a gymnasium in Ludhiana. UK MP Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi raised the farmers’ human rights issue in the Parliament. In British Columbia, the Gurdwara Council has written to the Canadian govt. to ask India to stop its crackdown on farmers.
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