Latest developments - with 24 updates. Friday 22nd Jan : Be Informed, Be Active
1. Assassination attempt on 4 farmer leaders uncovered today. The assassin was caught then paraded in a press conference in front of media. He was doing a reconnaissance visit and assassinations were to happen on 26th Jan.BJP alleged to be behind the assassination attempt.
2. The assassin claimed that he had met some police official who gave him work. The plan was to kill leaders and cause disruption during farmers' tractor march on Jan 26. He claimed that their were 10 people in his gang including 2 girls Pooja and Sunita active at Singhu protest.
3. He was paraded in front of media as Farmer leaders knew the BJP would lie that it never happened.
4. This followed the attempt yesterday to start a fire in the morcha site which had potential to kill many thousands. Fortunately the fire was quickly put out and culprit caught. Many suspect the arsonist was an undercover policeman. When farmers caught him and put out the fire, they handed him over to the police.
5. The car of a farmer leader was smashed by Police as part of continuous harassment. It was intentionally done before the meeting to aggravate the farmer leaders. The car was clearly marked with flags and the farmer leader is well known.
6. Amaan tweeted “You have to be extremely naive & blind to be surprised with the development at Singhu. Indian government has always operated with its agencies to derail and sabotage dissent. From “Sikhs have poisoned waters of Delhi” (84), to “Farmers would fire at police”, this is not new to us”.
7. Farmers leaders said they will confront with state sponsored violence against them with patience and love.
8. Other news from Farmer leaders press conference. They said this movement has spread and people from different professions have came in support of farmers. Indian Agencies are trying to disturb the movement to create violence.
9. Today the Meeting between BJP agriculture minister and Farmers should have been 5 hours. Farmers and ministers talked less for than 30 minutes. Some are saying that talks were held only for 15 minutes.
10. Agriculture Minister Tomar turned up late like many previous meetings. Then he walked out as he had nothing new to say.
11. Siri Akhand Path Bhog at Tikri Border today for all those farmers who passed away so far.
12. Hundreds of thousands start to move towards Delhi for 26th Jan protest.
13. Reports of 300,000 farmers, including bibian and children just from one district of Punjab.
14. Policy of Lakha Sidhana and other activists to go around educating Punjab is reaping benefits.
15. 200 Tractors & hundreds of vehicles passed through Andraya Pradesh.
16. On President Biden’s first full day in office, the Sikh Coalition sent a letter urging the new administration to support India’s farmers and take a stand for human rights.
17. 20 UK Trade unions come out in solidarity with farmers from Punjab and other states. The TUC said that they will continue to monitor the situation and will work closely with the International Trade Unions Confederation and global union federations, such as Industrial on any global actions that are called for international attention.
18. NDTV Ravish Kumar reads out Khalsa Aid statement against NIA letters on his channel.
19. Executives from social media giants Facebook and Twitter, who appeared before a parliamentary committee on Thursday, January 21, faced tough questions on why they blocked the accounts of Union Home Minister Amit Shah in November 2020 and what gave them the rights to do it, NDTV reported. When the Home Minister's account was blocked, Twitter had cited "inadvertent error" under its copyright policies as the reason. "This decision was reversed immediately and the account is fully functional," the social media giant had said.
20. Melbourne Sikhs have a meeting with people from Stop Adani movement Australia & Extinction Rebellion. Looking forward to work together to raise awareness of Adanis operations and climate change.
21. UK based orgs including BOSS holding Farmers Plight Conference on 24th Jan. Register on eventbrite.
22. ITV news coverage of Gurpreet Singh Dhindsa and Talvinder Singh Johal who have been camping in a tent in their back garden in Hayes, in solidarity with the farmers on strike in Delhi.
23. @BaazNewsOrg set up diaspora activities to create a platform for awareness. "We felt now is the right time to finally launch a platform where we can come together and have a home for opinions, ideas, and original reporting for the Sikh and Punjabi diaspora."
24. Sikh activists around the world are having to consider backing up all content on their sites and YouTube channels after hack attack on Basics of Sikhi YouTube channel.
