Blood Spilis On Maya's Yamuna Expressway

"Blood Spilis On Maya's Yamuna Expressway As Farmer Protest Poor Compensation"

It was a bloody Independence Day in several villages of Uttar Pradesh. Hundreds of farmers fought pitched battles with the state police over poor compensation for land acquired for the Yamuna Expressway -- chief minister Mayawati's prestige highway project.
At least three farmers were killed in police firing while an officer of the Provincial Armed Constabulary ( PAC) was beaten to death by an angry mob in clashes that began on Saturday evening.

One of the victims of police firing was 13- yearold school student Prashant Sharma. The others have been identified as 25- year- old Dharmendra Singh and 26- year- old Anil Kumar. The PAC man killed was Vijendra Singh.

Zikarpur in Mathura and five neighbouring villages of Tappal, Kansera, Jahangarh, Udaipur and Kirpalpur on the Aligarh- Palwal highway have become the centre of the farmers' protest for close to three weeks.

The farmers in this Aligarh- Mathura stretch want compensation parity with those in the Noida and Greater Noida areas. They want Rs 700 per sq m offered for land acquired for the expressway in Noida and Greater Noida and not Rs 439 a sq m offered to them.

What was till now a battle of nerves, and included negotiations with the Mayawati government took a sudden and deadly turn on Saturday. " Don't go to the Zikarpur- Tappal area, bullets are raining there," motorists were advised by villagers.

Violence erupted after the police attempted to leave the protesters rudderless by picking up the leaders.
One of those was Ram Babu Katelia, a representative of the villagers who has been in consultation with the state government on the compensation issue.

Accompanied by hundreds of supporters, Katelia was marching from Mathura to Aligarh on Saturday evening when he was reportedly stopped by a posse of over 20 policemen and bundled into a van. Katelia had earlier announced he would march to Tappal in Aligarh to wrest possession of the land acquired and handed over to the Jaypee group, the developers of the Yamuna Expressway project.

However the company said that the allegations are baseless.

" We are just the contractors for the project. We are not acquiring lands, nor are we deciding on the compensations. All the lands are being acquired by the Yamuna Expressway Authority and they are deciding about the compensations so how can the contractor be blamed for that," a senior company official said.

" Even the lands for the township projects along the expressway are being acquired by the authority and then given to us," he added.

" On Saturday evening, four police vehicles with tinted glasses reached the spot. They wanted to arrest our leaders. But they had not informed us of their plans.

Then, they suddenly attacked us with teargas shells. When the crowd moved towards them, the policemen fired. At least four people have died, more than two dozen seriously injured," said Ram Karan, 42, a resident of Zikarpur.

Despite the police action, the villagers did not step back. They snatched several bulletproof jackets belonging to the policemen and in a show of defiance wore them during their protests.

The villagers, even though they retaliated, claimed they were taken aback by the sheer force of the attack by the police. " The police would assault us so brazenly was not expected. Otherwise we would not have let our children and women to face them.

It was a brutal police assault," said Kumarveer, a local farmer.

The state government has the custody of Katelia other villagers spearheading the campaign. However, the firing and strong arm tactics have only enraged the locals.

On Sunday, a crowd was still present at the bridge that separates Zikarpur and Kansera, two of the affected villages. The unfinished Yamuna Expressway runs above like a giant grey line in a sea of green fields.

By its side, on ground muddy due to rain, a tent has been erected where on the public address system one after another village leaders tell their fellowmen to not lose courage. The protest does not end at night, even though some protesters go home only to return in the morning. The farmers say they will continue till their leaders are freed and their compensation demand is met.

While the government is willing to provide Rs 3.5 lakh for each bigha ( over 1 acre) of land it acquires, the courts too having ruled in its favour. The villagers, though, believe that their land is no less precious than in neighbouring Greater Noida.

" Our delegation went to Lucknow a few days ago. The government raised the price by a few rupees. But they had paid the Noida farmers much more. This despite the fact that our lands are much more fertile. And most of us don't know any other way of life," said Virender Kumar, whose land has also been acquired.

For the past several months the villagers have not got much attention.

However on Sunday, political leaders made a beeline for the village.

Mathura MP Jayant Chowdhary, Rakesh Tikait, son of BKU leader Mahendra Singh Tikait, Congress state chief Rita Bahuguna Joshi were among them. The sense of loss of their land and strong arm tactics of the government here however have only added to the villagers' resolve. " Our protest will continue even if our leaders have been held.

We are paying the price of somebody else's development," says 77- year- old Morari Lal Sharma.

Late on Sunday, in an effort to win back control of the situation, the chief minister announced a compensation of Rs 5 lakh to the family members of those killed and ordered a judicial probe into the incident of police firing. She also instituted a committee under the commissioner of Aligarh to study the demand of the farmers for higher compensation.

" My government is pro farmer.
The attitude of the opposition parties on this issue is unfortunate", Mayawati said.

Source: Mail Today By Amandeep Shukla & Piyush Srivastava