Yogendra Yadav & co get 3 days to explain tractor parade riot; Shah to meet injured police

Union Home Minister Amit Shah is likely to visit two hospitals in the national capital on Thursday, two days after the mass rioting and violence witnessed in Delhi on Republic Day, sources said. According to Delhi Police sources, the Home Minister will Shushrut Trauma Centre & Teerath Ram Hospital where police personnel injured in the clashes have been admitted.

Meanwhile, also on Thursday morning, the Delhi Police has issued notice to at least 20 farmer leaders including Yogendra Yadav, Baldev Singh Sirsa, Balbir S Rejewal and others for breaching the agreement with police regarding the tractor rally. They have been asked to reply within three days.

Amit Shah reviews law and order in Delhi

This comes after Amit Shah on Wednesday took stock of the security situation and measures taken to ensure peace in the city. Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla and senior officers of the Ministry of Home Affairs and Delhi Police attended the meeting. The Home Minister reviewed the law and order situation in Delhi, which witnessed violence during the farmers' tractor rally on Tuesday, news agency PTI quoted a Home Ministry official as saying.

Amit Shah was also briefed by the officials about the steps taken to ensure peace in the national capital, the official said. The central government has already deployed around 4,500 paramilitary troops to assist the Delhi Police in maintaining law and order. Rapid Action Force personnel have also been repositioned in the national capital and vigil has been intensified in view of the evolving situation.

Tens of thousands of farmers broke barriers to storm the national capital on Tuesday, their tractor parade to highlight their demands dissolving into unprecedented scenes of anarchy as they fought with police, overturned vehicles and delivered a national insult hoisting a religious flag from the ramparts of the Red Fort, a place reserved for India's Tricolour. Clashes broke out in multiple places, leading to violence in well-known landmarks of Delhi and its suburbs, amid waves of violence that ebbed and flowed through the day.

READ | Radical SFJ announces reward over Red Fort flag incident; eyes Budget-day Parliament siege

READ | Punjabi actor Deep Sidhu, gangster Lakha Sadana booked for Red Fort violence on R-Day

Prominent farmer leaders booked

Meanwhile, farmer leaders Rakesh Tikait, Yogendra Yadav and Darshan Pal and social activist Medha Patkar were among the 37 people named by the Delhi police in an FIR on the violence during the tractor parade that includes an attempt to murder charge even as two farmer unions on Wednesday said they are withdrawing from the protests against the farm laws.

Delhi police commissioner S N Shrivastava said 19 people have been arrested while 50 people were detained for questioning. Srivastava said 25 criminal cases have been registered so far while 394 personnel of the Delhi police were injured and 30 police vehicles damaged. Addressing media on Wednesday, Shrivastava put forth two important points, amid others - that the farmer leaders had gone back on their word of holding a peaceful protest by violating the terms of the plan and route that had been agreed upon in 5 meetings with the police, and that the fact that casualties were largely restricted was because the police decided to not deploy the various mechanisms at their disposal. 

READ | Mamata govt to move censure motion over 'Jai Shri Ram' slogans; CPI(M) & Cong to oppose it

READ | MHA issues new COVID-19 guidelines, includes relaxations for cinema halls, swimming pools

(With PTI inputs)