55 year old farmer dies, kin blames Haryana govt crackdown

A farmer taking part in the protest dies due to cold


Gajjan Singh, a 55-year-old farmer died at the Tikri morcha on Sunday evening. According to farmers and his family, Gajjan Singh had fallen ill after getting repeatedly wet during the clampdown on protesters by the Haryana government using water cannons. He had collapsed when he got up, to go to the toilet and was rushed to the hospital where he was declared dead.

Gajjan was a resident of Ludhiana’s Khatra village and associated with BKU (Sidhupur) union. Farmer leaders refused to cremate the body of the deceased farmer and demanded that Haryana government officials should be booked over his death. The dead body of farmer has been kept at the Bahadurgarh Civil Hospital mortuary.

Hardeep Singh, Gajjan’s nephew said, “I find Haryana and the Centre government responsible for this incident. They are forcing farmers to sit on dharnas for the past many months. My Chachaji got sick after getting wet repeatedly and could not take care of himself at the morcha due to which he caught cold and died. I am in deep shock. We don’t value a human life in this country.”

Gajjan Singh is the third farmer among three who have lost their lives during farmer’s protest since November 26.  Dhanna Singh, a 45-year-old farmer from Mansa district in Punjab passed away due to an over head collision of his tractor with the truck full of sandbags on the night of November 26. The truck carrying sandbags was used to block roads by the Haryana Police. In the same road accident that took place near Mundhal in Bhiwani, two farmers who were riding the tractor with Dhanna Singh were also injured.

In a separate incident that took place on November 29, Janak Raj Aggarwal, a 55-year-old, died while sleeping in a car that caught fire at 12:00am. Though the farmer tried to rescued him but they were unsuccessful. Janak Raj Aggarwal, was a mechanic from Dhanula in Punjab who accompanied the agitating farmers to provide his services to repair their trucks and tractors on the way to Delhi.

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