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News Desk: Police in Haryana have charged over 100 farmers with sedition after they allegedly attacked and damaged the official vehicle of Deputy Speaker Ranbir Gangwa during a protest against members of the state’s ruling BJP-Jannayak Janata Party alliance and the controversial new farm laws.
The incident took place in Haryana’s Sirsa district on July 11. The FIR was filed on the same day.
Apart from sedition, the FIR also charges farmers with ‘attempt to murder’. Two leaders of the farmers’ movement – Harcharan Singh and Prahlad Singh – were among those named in the FIR.
In a statement issued yesterday, the Samyukt Kisan Morcha slammed the charges, calling them “false, frivolous and cooked up” and vowing to contest them in court.
“Farmer leaders Harcharan Singh and Prahlad Singh and around 100 farmers have been booked under false cases… with grave charge of sedition… merely because they were protesting against Haryana Deputy Speaker in Sirsa,” the statement said.
“SKM strongly condemns false, frivolous and cooked-up sedition charges, and indeed all other charges, against farmers and farmer leaders under instructions of the anti-farmer BJP government of Haryana,” it added.
