Chandigarh: As the protest against the Centre’s three farm laws continues unabated, a farmer died allegedly after consuming poison at a protest site in Haryana’s Jind district.
Uchana Police Station SHO Ravinder Singh on Wednesday said the deceased farmer has been identified as Pala Ram.
“He consumed poison late Tuesday night and on Wednesday morning we received information that a farmer has died,” PTI quoted the SHO as saying over the phone.
The police official, however, added that no suicide note has been found from the spot.
According to police, over 500 farmers usually gather during the day at the protest site at Khatkar toll plaza, while only a few stay there overnight.
The SHO further said “while two to three people slept on mats outside on Tuesday night, Pala Ram went to sleep in a tent erected at the site and consumed poison”.
The 58-year-old deceased farmer used to serve food and tea to the protesting farmers at the toll plaza for the past few months.
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The protesting farmers told the police that Pala Ram appeared depressed for the past few days as the demands against the farm laws had not been met for over six months now.
A few other cases of farmers committing suicide during the protests was reported earlier as well.
Thousands of farmers, mostly from Punjab, Haryana, and western Uttar Pradesh, began their protest in November last year at three different border points of the national capital, demanding that Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government repeal these laws.
Demanding that the Farmers' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, Farmers' (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020 be rolled back, the farmers are asking the Centre to bring in a new law to guarantee minimum support price for their crops.
The ruling dispensation has, however, so for maintained that these laws are pro-farmer.
So far, the government has held 11 rounds of talks, the last being on January 22, with the farmers' unions to end the agitation over the laws enacted in September 2020.