A 55-year-old farmer, Gajjan Singh, died at the Tiki mocha on the evening of Sunday, 29 November. His family alleges that Singh had gotten sick after being repeatedly drenched by the water cannons deployed by the Haryana government during the clampdown of the ‘Delhi Chalo Farmers’ Protest’.
A resident of Ludhiana’s Khatra village, the farmer had collapsed on Sunday evening, after which he was rushed to hospital but was declared dead. The body has been kept at the Bahadurgarh Civil Hospital mortuary, reported The Indian Express.
Gajjan Singh’s nephew, Hardeep Singh, reached Bahadurgarh on Monday morning and spoke to the daily, saying, “I find Haryana and the Centre government responsible for this incident. They are forcing farmers to sit on darns for the past many months. My chachaji (uncle) got sick after getting wet repeatedly and could not take care of himself at the mocha due to which he caught cold and died.”
The farmer was associated with the BKU (Sidhupur) union. Farmers’ leaders have refused to cremate his body, demanding that Haryana officials be booked over his death, the report added.
Kaka Singh Kotra, State General Secretary of BKU (Sidhupur) told The Indian Express that they have not asked for any compensation, “We have given in writing to Haryana and Centre government that his family members should be given government job and concerned officials who troubled farmers in Haryana should be booked. We value his life in crores. So we have not sought any compensation from the government as money is no replacement for a human being.”
Gajjan Singh is the third farmer to die during the protests over the three contentious farmer laws passed by the Centre in September.
Dhanna Singh, a 45-year-old farmer who had mobilised farmers from over 40 villages to join the protest, died in a road accident on the way to Delhi on 27 November at the Bhiwandi-Delhi Highway and Janak Raj Aggarwal died while sleeping in a car on 18 November.
(With inputs from The Indian Express)
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