Farm violence spills to five more districts in Madhya Pradesh

Bhopal/New Delhi: A day after six farmers were killed in police firing in Madhya Pradesh’s Mandsaur, violent protests continued there despite prohibitory orders and spread to five more districts on Wednesday.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi discussed the volatile situation in the BJP-ruled state with senior Union ministers in Delhi.

The Centre has sought a report from the government, and sent 1,100 security personnel to the state since Tuesday night. Farmers began a ten-day agitation on June 1 for debt relief, pension benefits and better crop prices.

Chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who has been in office since 2005, appealed for calm and promised to look into the demands of farmers. He also announced a compensation of Rs 1 crore for the families of those killed Tuesday, while spiralling protests handed the Opposition a rallying point.

Mandsaur district collector Swatantra Kumar Singh and superintendent of police O.P. Tripathy were heckled on Wednesday when the two tried to pacify a group of agitators sitting with the body of one of the police firing victims.

Protesters assaulted policemen and journalists in Mandsaur and torched police vehicles, trucks, a petrol station, a warehouse and a factory. Violence was also reported from Ujjain, Dewas, Neemuch, Dhar and Ratlam districts.

Curfew was in force in many parts of Mandsaur for the second day, while mobile phone and Internet services remained suspended in the district where hundreds of policemen in riot gear patrolled the streets.

Farmers said they plan to scale up their protests. “We will continue our protest until the government accepts our demands,” said Sunil Gaur of Rashtriya Kisan Mazdoor Sangh.

A Madhya Pradesh bandh called by the Congress affected some western parts of the state, but petrol stations, markets and other establishments remained open in Bhopal.

Former Congress MP from Mandsaur, Meenakshi Natarajan, was detained when she was on her way to meet the family members of the deceased.

The violence is bad news for the BJP, which swept to power in the state 14 years ago. Ravaged by drought and farm suicides, Madhya Pradesh goes to the polls next year.

Union home ministry officials admitted that the extent of Tuesday’s violence reveals that the state administration did not have local intelligence on mobilisation of farmers and it was not fully prepared to handle the violent agitation.

The situation, officials said, is expected to become normal within the next two-three days.

Spiraling farm protests in BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh and neighbouring Maharashtra pose a challenge for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has promised to double farmers’ incomes over the next five years.