The village of Bhatta is coming to terms with its losses. A fortnight after facing the wrath of the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC), the majority of men, women and children in this 2,700-strong village are too scared to return to their homes.
A gram sabha held at the village school early Saturday morning saw 200 male residents return home to air their grievances before their local MP, Mr Surendra Singh Nagar (BSP), who paid his first visit here after the police firing.
The fuming villagers minced no words when they informed Mr Nagar that the police firing had started “some time in the afternoon and continued till late in the evening”. This was followed, the villagers told Mr Nagar, by the PAC going on the rampage. They did not spare family elders, women or children, the villagers said. The few men who did not manage to flee their homes were dragged out, beaten up mercilessly and taken to unknown places while village property was burnt and looted.
The farmers, led by their sarpanch, had three key questions for Mr Nagar. They had been agitating for an increase in compensation for land being acquired around Bhatta-Parsaul near the Yamuna Expressway from January 2011 and, despite farmers’ delegations making representations before UP chief minister Mayawati and the UP governor, Mr Nagar had made no attempt to conduct any dialogue with them. “We were received as a farmers’ delegation when we were in Lucknow; now why is the state government painting us as Maoists and Naxalites,” the farmers demanded to know. “Why were only the upper castes targeted with no member of the Jatava community or their homes attacked,” the villagers asked.
The frightened village community was, however, willing to extend an olive leaf and create a 21-member “Shanti Samiti” which would enter into a dialogue with the state government. But before they did so, they wanted the charges levied against the farmers removed, said former Bhatta pradhan Satveer Singh.
The brutality unleashed on the village women and children has been merciless. Fifteen-year-old Neha Sharma’s arm was fractured when the PAC entered her house and beat up both her and her mother, Kanti, for trying to protect her aged father, Shiv Kumar Sharma. Shiv Kumar was dragged from his house and taken to an unknown place; he was located on Friday in a Delhi hospital.
Landless 60-year-old Kapuri saw her son and grandson being shot in the foot even though they were not part of the farmers’ agitation. She has still no idea where they have been taken.
Three teenage boys, including Kapil Sharma, 14, a student of Kisan Intercollege, remained in the lockup for three days before being released. He received no food or water during this time.
The more affluent Durga Sharma saw a rampaging PAC mob break into her house and burn her belongings, including a tractor, an Alto car, a motorcycle and buggy. Husband Ramesh remains in the lockup.
In 2007, the Mayawati administration acquired 2,000 acres from farmers by invoking the public interest clause. Land has been acquired from 155 villages of Greater Noida, Hapur, Bulandshahr and Sikandarabad in “public interest”, but without public hearings, by using the “emergency” clause for industrial development. But a large chunk of this land has been handed over to the builder lobby.