Delhi Police has warned commuters that traffic diversions “may be required at Singhu, Ghazipur & Tikri borders”
Heightened security arrangements put in place for a march of farmers from Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh to the Capital were expected to trigger traffic chaos in the National Capital Region on Tuesday even as the Delhi Police have enforced prohibitory orders restricting movement and public gatherings.
The farmers planned to converge at the Capital’s Singhu, Tikri, and Ghazipur border points on Tuesday afternoon. Rows of metal barricades, shipping containers, concertina wires, and trenches have been placed on Delhi’s fringes ahead of the march. Farm leaders confirmed the protest would continue after their meeting with Union ministers ended around midnight.
The jams were expected to spill onto arterial stretches across the city, especially its outer, eastern, central, northern, and southern parts. In a revised traffic advisory on Monday evening, the Delhi Police warned commuters that traffic diversions “may be required at Singhu, Ghazipur and Tikri borders depending on the conditions”.
An earlier advisory said that “traffic restrictions and diversions will be imposed at Singhu, Tikri, and Ghazipur borders from February 12 for commercial vehicles and from February 13 for all types of vehicles”.
Security arrangements at Delhi borders
Over 50 Delhi Police and paramilitary companies equipped with tear gas launchers and shells, bulletproof vests, helmets, batons, and sophisticated weapons were deployed at the Singhu, Tikri, and Ghazipur borders. Drones were also deployed over the city’s fringes.
Iron barricades, jersey barriers, shipping containers, barbed wire fencing, iron nails, hydra cranes, buses, and other vehicles form multi-layered blockades at the borders to stop the protesting farmers from entering Delhi.
An alert has been sounded in all police stations across the city and police personnel have been asked to intensify police pickets, patrolling, and checking of vehicles.
The police put up check-posts in central Delhi on Monday. Vehicles were checked at the Ranjit Singh flyover, Mandi House, ITO, Minto Bridge, Mathura Road, and Ring Road.
The preparations were put in place as talks in Punjab between Union ministers including Piyush Goyal and Arjun Munda with the heads of the protesting farmer bodies reached an impasse. The first meeting between the two sides on February 8 also ended in a stalemate.
Farmer leaders accused the government of trying to buy time even as authorities in Haryana and Punjab fortified the states’ borders, using concrete blocks, iron nails, and barbed wire to prevent the proposed march.
The Haryana government has imposed restrictions in 15 districts, prohibiting the assembly of five or more people and banning any demonstration or march with tractor-trolleys.
Farmers affiliated with 200 organisations and unions on Monday set off atop trucks and tractors en route to Delhi, defying curbs. Some protesters rammed down barricades with their vehicles, prompting authorities to deploy paramilitary and police forces to prevent farmers from marching to Delhi.
