Farmer, 75, hangs himself in protest against Centre’s farm laws

In protest against Centre’s three new farm laws that were enacted in September last year, Sardar Kashmir Singh, a 75-year-old farmer, died after he hanged himself at the Uttar Pradesh-Delhi border in Ghazipur on Saturday morning, reported PTI. 

A native of Bilaspur in Uttar Pradesh’s Rampur district, Singh hanged himself in a mobile toilet using a rope and wrote in the suicide note the government must repeal the farm laws, said police.  

This comes amid the protests being held by farmers, majorly from Punjab and Haryana, at several border points of Delhi for over a month now. 

Singh, in his suicide note written in Gurumukhi, expressed his anguish over people from Punjab who have died during the agitation but no one from Uttar Pradesh or Uttarakhand has sacrificed their life for the cause of farmers’ protest. 

Singh, in his letter, also requested the Sikh community to help his family marry off his two granddaughters and to address the domestic problems being faced by his married daughter, reported PTI.

Expressing grief over Singh’s death, Bharat Kisan Union spokesman Rakesh Tikait demanded that the Centre provide ex-gratia of Rs 10 lakh each to the families of Kashmir Singh and another farmer who died of a heart attack at the protest site on Friday.

Till now, 47 farmers have sacrificed their lives during the ongoing protests, claimed Taikait, by thousands of agitators, who are demanding the complete withdrawal of the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, Farmers Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act.

Tikait said that the Centre is testing the patience of farmers and that the sacrifice of farmers, who died, would not go in vain.