Islamabad: Police charged at the Farmer’s Union protesting at D-chowk in Islamabad on Thursday, prior to the presentation of the budget for the next fiscal year.
The protesters were attempting to enter the red zone in the capital, said police.
The police further said that the protesters hurled stones at them. Additional police personnel including Frontier Constabulary have been called in to handle the situation.
The police employed punitive measures, including tear gas, to disperse the protesters.
Numerous farmers have been taken into custody while many are injured. Emergency has been imposed in all hospitals in the capital.
The protesters said,” the government has failed to enact reforms for the betterment of the farmers’ community and their labours have been in vain”.
They demanded that the government eliminate taxes on agriculture and strictly revise the prices of all agricultural output.
Policies are being formulated by personnel who do not have knowledge of agriculture, said the farmers.
The farmers have displayed solidarity and resolved that the protest and the sit-in would continue.
The opposition leader Khursheed Shah sympathising with the demands of the protesters said that the government has done nothing to reform the agriculture in the past four years.
Metro and road traffic has been suspended due to the clash between the protesters and the police.
