New Delhi: Indian-origin lawmakers in Canada and the UK have strongly criticised the killing of at least eight people, including four farmers, at Lakhimpur Kheri in Uttar Pradesh on October 3, indicating that the farmers’ protests continue to be a political lightning rod among the diaspora.
On Sunday, at least four farmers taking part in the protests against the farm laws were mowed down by a jeep, following which violence erupted. Four others, including two BJP workers and a journalist, were also killed, apparently in clashes after the car ran over the farmers. However, there is no official version of the death of the four others.
The farmers have claimed that the vehicle was being driven by Ashish Mishra, Union minister Ajay Kumar Mishra’s son. The minister and his son have denied that Ashish was at the scene, however, an FIR has been filed against him.Ruby Singh Sahota, a Canadian Liberal member of parliament, tweeted that she was “heartbroken to learn about the violence directed at protesting farmers in Lakhimpur Kheri, India”.
Sahota had also raised the issue of the farmers’ protests in the Canadian parliament in November last year.Canada, where a large number of the Indian diaspora is from Punjab, has witnessed several demonstrations in solidarity with Indian farmers. The farmers’ protests even became an electoral topic in diaspora-dominated constituencies during the recent federal elections.
The issue has also figured into bilateral conversations between India and Canada, with Canadian lawmakers expressing concerns about the use of force against protestors.A month after that, India had summoned the erstwhile high commissioner of Canada to India, Nadir Patel, over Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s remarks supporting the right to peaceful protests for farmers in India.Conservative MP Tim Uppal had also tweeted his shock about the “brazen attack on protesting farmers in Lakhimpur Kheri which killed four farmers and injured many others”.
The former federal minister of state had also been part of the virtual radio program to mark Guru Nanak’s 550th birth anniversary, during which Trudeau had made the remarks which offended the Indian government.Across the Atlantic, the UK’s first woman Sikh MP, Preet Kaur Gill, said that the death of the four farmers was “deeply disturbing” and tweeted the names and ages of the dead.
Gill had written to the British foreign secretary in February asking what the UK government was doing with regards to the farmers’ protests in India. Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi of the Labour party, the most vocal among the UK’s Indian-origin MPs on the issue of the farmers’ protests, also tweeted his concern at the “trampling to death” of peaceful activists and others at Lakhimpur Kheri.“My heartfelt condolences to the families for their immense loss. Hope the authorities and media will treat them fairly, because they deserve justice now,” he tweeted.
In March this year, India had summoned British high commissioner Alex Willis after the UK’s parliament held a debate on ‘Press Freedom and Safety of Protestors’. The Ministry of External Affairs had called it an “unwarranted and tendentious” discussion and a “gross interference” in India’s internal affairs.
