Black ink thrown at farmer leader Rakesh Tikait at Bengaluru press conference

|HT|

In Bengaluru, scenes of chaos emerged on Monday when black ink was thrown at farmer leader Rakesh Tikait at a press conference. The Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) leader's face smeared in ink. People around him were seen throwing chairs at each other as ruckus erupted. Some other farm leaders were also present during the event. “No security has been provided by the local police here. This has been done in collusion with the government,” Tikait told the news agency after the ink attack. Three people have been reportedly detained in the ink attack. According to reports, the press conference was held to give clarification over a sting operation where a farm leader from Karnataka was allegedly caught asking for money. Rakesh Tikait had spearheaded the agitation against the centre's three farm laws in Delhi and neighbouring states of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, which started in November 2020 and went on till December last year.

A day back, Tikait had addressed a massive ‘Kisan Mazdoor panchayat’ at village Kakda of district Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh, where he threatened to snap the electricity supply in urban areas if villages also do not get regular power.

Addressing the panchayat with his brother Naresh, Tikait slammed the ruling governments over farmers’ issues. The brothers also warned that farmers would tie their livestock in police stations if the transportation of hay from Haryana and Punjab continued was blocked on the borders of the two states.

(Except for the headline and the pictorial description, this story has not been edited by THE DEN staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)