Handle with care: Warring on Zira farmers’ stir
CHANDIGARH, December 20: Punjab Congress president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring today cautioned the Punjab government to handle the farmers’ protest outside a distillery near Zira in Ferozepur district with utmost care and caution and said any force used against protesting farmers is unacceptable.
“Once bitten twice shy”, he remarked, while pointing out that the entire Malwa region was suffering from the spread of cancer caused by contamination of groundwater. “How can they allow it to happen again, unless their fears are not duly addressed by scientific examination and reasoning?” he asked.
Reacting to the reports of siege and police action following the court orders to clear the path to the distillery, the PCC president blamed the Aam Aadmi Party government in Punjab for letting the situation drift to a stage, which has led to confrontation.
“Farmers have genuine apprehensions that the effluents from the distillery may pollute the groundwater, which the government should have addressed in the beginning only, while instead it allowed the situation to linger on”, he pointed out.
The PCC president welcomed the High Court suggestion that it can order the constitution of a committee that will examine the farmers’ apprehensions that the effluents might cause pollution to the ground water.
Warring pointed out, not just the farmers, but the entire population of Malwa region is scared of the spread of cancer on account of contamination of groundwater that seeps underground from river Satluj. Satluj, he added, gets polluted from industrial effluents released in Ludhiana through the Buddha Nullah, which makes its way into Satluj.
Cancer, he said, has spread out in Malwa region at an alarming proportion that at one point of time, the Bikaner train was described as “cancer express” as it would carry cancer patients to Bikaner for treatment. Nobody will let that happen again, he pointed out.
