Two days after five farmers were charged with sedition and arrested on Thursday, farmers in Haryana's Sirsa knocked down police barricades to show their dissent against the arrest of the farmers, a report by NDTV said.
Five farmers were charged with sedition and arrested in early morning raids on Thursday for allegedly attacking BJP leader and Haryana Assembly's Deputy Speaker Ranbir Gangwa on July 11.
Sirsa, which is about 250 km from Delhi, has been on high alert since morning as farmer leaders demanded the release of those arrested.
This afternoon, a 20-member committee of farmers met a group of officials to discuss their demands.
On Sunday, the BJP's Ranbir Gangwa was allegedly attacked and his official vehicle was damaged during a protest against the contentious farm laws.
More than 100 farmers faced sedition charges; five of them were arrested on Thursday.
In a statement issued earlier this week, the Samyukt Kisan Morcha (one of the protesting groups) slammed the charges, calling them "false, frivolous and cooked up" and vowing to contest them in court.
"SKM strongly condemns false, frivolous and cooked-up sedition charges, and indeed all other charges, against farmers and farmer leaders under instructions of the anti-farmer BJP government of Haryana," it said.
The arrests come at a time when Supreme Court has questioned the relevance of sedition law, describing it as "colonial".
"The sedition Law is a colonial law. Do we still need the law in our country after 75 years of Independence," Chief Justice NV Ramana questioned earlier this week.
"The dispute is it is a colonial law... the very same law was used by the British to silence Mahatma Gandhi and to suppress the freedom movement. Is the law still necessary in the statute book in our country after 75 years of Independence?" the court had said.
