India: At least eight dead after agricultural protesters attacked Minister’s convoy | India

At least eight people have been killed in northern India after clashes erupted at a farmers’ protest, officials told local media, in a deadly escalation of their year-long campaign against them. controversial agricultural laws.

Farmers gathered on Sunday for a protest in Lakhimpur Kheri district in Uttar Pradesh state, where Deputy Home Affairs Minister Ajay Mishra and Deputy Chief State Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya, had to surrender.

Chaotic scenes then erupted around vehicles forming part of the Mishra convoy.

“Eight people died in today’s Lakhimpur incident. Of the eight, four were farmers and the other four were others who were in the vehicles, ”Uttar Pradesh Police Director General Mukul Goel told CNN-News18. .

Farmers claimed that Mishra’s son was in or driving a car in the minister’s convoy when the vehicle knocked down four protesters, killing them.

Angry protesters then set the cars on fire and four more people were killed in the violence that followed, according to initial reports from farmers during the protest.

A video shared on social media allegedly from the protest showed burning cars and bloody farmers.

But Mishra denied the claims, telling local media that protesters attacked the convoy and killed three workers from the Bharatiya Janata party – the ruling party nationally and in Uttar Pradesh – and a driver.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath called the incident “very sad and unhappy” as he called for calm.

“Before drawing any hasty conclusions, please wait for the investigation in progress and the action which will follow” he tweeted on Sunday evening in hindi.

Internet services in the area have been cut and roads to the state capital, Lucknow, have been closed to quell further outbreaks of violence, local media reported.

Opposition leaders and farmer union leaders said they were going to Lakhimpur Kheri.

Farmers last week marked the first anniversary of the president’s approval of laws to deregulate the agricultural sector, which has long been a political minefield and employs around two-thirds of the 1.3 billion people in India.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has said the industry is massively inefficient and needs reform. But protesters fear the changes will leave them at the mercy of big business.

Tens of thousands of farmers have camped on the borders of the Indian capital New Delhi since late November in one of the biggest challenges for Modi’s government.

The incident came ahead of crucial elections next year in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state and a key source of votes for the BJP.