Ghaziabad: Ghaziabad administration said it would make efforts to convince farmers who protested the gate (border ghazipur) to remove their tents from Delhi-Meerut Expressway (DME) so that the highway could be opened for traffic.
Hope has enlightened about normal circumstances, at least one level, returning to the border after Delhi police on Friday removing a barricade from DME, which Ghoziabad-Delhi has been blocked since last November when protests against the main agricultural law began.
Magistrate District Ghaziabad RK Singh told TII on Saturday that vehicle traffic could not be continued on DME until “each tent was removed”.
“So far, we have not been able to discuss it with farmers.
But in the future, we will try to convince them to empty the protest site because it is located in Ghaziabad’s jurisdiction,” Singh said.
Toi has reported on Friday that even after barricades and tents are removed, the return of traffic will depend on the road conditions.
An official of the National Highway Authority (NHAI) said the damage assessment must be carried out and improvements made before traffic can be permitted on stretching.
There, meanwhile, a little change in land reality at the gate on Saturday.
Debris from the concrete obstacle that was violated by the police on Friday was cleaned from several parts of the road but the details of heavy security, consisting of police and paramilitary personnel and iron barriers, were still used in DME.
The locals, who have been forced to take a long detour through the land road to go to Delhi for 11 months, hopes that the removal of the DME barricade will lead to some reciprocity of farmers.
However, so far, there is no indication.
On Saturday, some more farmers joined the agitation on the gate on the call of BKU Rakesh Titika to protest fresh urge, but their number was not significant.
Rasul Alam, a farmer from Bihar Chamaran, was rather disappointed with numbers.
“I hope farmers in tractors and trolleys will reach a large gate after Delhi’s police issued a barricade on Friday.
But there is no one tractor coming on Saturday,” he said.
100-odd farmers have been present at the gate emerged firmly in their stand that the police, and not the protesters, had blocked the highway.
“There is no blockade from our side.
We have allowed an ambulance and another vehicle to pass,” said Dilbar Singh, a farmer who protested.
On Saturday morning, a group of farmers set up pickets near Khoda Colony and let several vehicles pass.
Asked about this, Dilbar Singh said, “This is to ensure that the problem maker does not get access to the protest site.
There is a contingent of police personnel who are there all the time.
Do you think we can stop any vehicle before them?” Until now, The barricade is only removed from DME distribution at the gate.
The obstacles remain under the flyover, at NH-9.