GOKUL KISAN MOVEMENT: STALEMATE CONTINUES

Mathura

 

A week after the mayhem on the Gokul barrage that spilled over the national highway, resulting in pelting of stones, blank fires by the police, torching of buses and injuries to scores of people including police cops, district authorities were nowhere reaching an amicable solution to the compensation issue.

 

"The urgent task at hand is the release of party workers and the farmers," said BJP leaders who met the arrested at the district jail.

 

Leaders of the Bhartiya Janata Party Yuva Morcha spearheading the movement  state president Ashutosh Rai and secretary Rahul Kothari alongwith several local leaders met the party workers inside the jail. They said the injured were not being provided medical care. Reports of some inmates going on hunger strike had alarmed district officials but Saturday it was officially stated that no one was on hunger strike.

 

District authorities have now received alarming signals from some villages in the Vrindavan area, preparing for a showdown on the compensation issue. Rajpur panchayat farmers contacted BJP leaders to demand compensation for their land in the catchment area of the Gokul barrage.

 

Police teams had been stationed in the Damodarpura area and regular patrolling of the national highway and the road going to Aligarh had been intensified after reports that the farmers were being mobilised for another confrontation. At the Damodarpura crossing, the dharna is attracting more and more people daily. The Bhartiya Kisan Union leaders said the number of women participating in the dharna was increasing. Women are incensed at the delay in the release of agitating farmers.

 

Meanwhile, more than 50 people including a few BJP leaders were booked Friday night for violating section 144 in force. SDM Mahavan Vishwabhushan Mishra and SHO Akhilesh Tripathi told the gathering that they could not hold a meeting as section 144 had been imposed. But the leaders went ahead and held a stormy meeting demanding immediate release of those arrested and increased compensation for the land acquired 16 years ago.

 

The Bhartiya Janata Party MP Hema Malini met the families of the injured and those arrested to assure them that the party would do its best to secure their release at the earliest.

 

The Samajwadi Party has already accused the BJP of playing with fire, inciting farmers. A local leader said the district administration was already in the process of scrutinising the cases and forwarding them to the state government for early disposal. But the ruling party has so far failed to explain the 16 year long delay, say the agitated farmers.