Crushing Peasant Consolidation in Punjab

Harsh Thakor

For 5 consecutive days the grain market in Patiala turned into an Ocean shimmering the torch of justice against the life sentence on peasant leader Manjit Dhaner. The Punjab government awarded a life sentence on the peasant leader of the Bharatiya Kisan Union (Dakaunda) on grounds of raping Kiranjeet Kaur. It was a spectacle witnessing the fury of all sections of society in Punjab industrial workers peasants students and youth assembled who are till this day determined to take the struggle to the end. The sentence is as good as convicting any mass peasant leader and morally an attack on the peasant community as a whole .Notable participation from virtually all sections of the democratic revolutionary camp in Punjab like the Bharatiya Kisan Union (Ugrahan), the Bhartiya Kisan Union (Dakaunda), the Punjab Students Union (Shaeed Randhawa), Punjab Students Union, Naujwan Bharat Sabha, Kirti Kisan Union, Technical services Union etc. The unity of such forces had great significance to the overall building of the democratic revolutionary movement in Punjab. On the first day of the protest the authorities prevented the agitators from assembling at the decided venue in Patiala so they collected like a huge army at the Bathinda-Zirakpur national highway and launched a prolonged jam creating the impact of a torrent and resilience of a boulder in defying the authorities. The denial of permission by the state government for the rally is of political significance reflecting how threatened the administration felt BKU (Dakaunda) leaders Jagmohan Singh and Buta Singh Burgill convenor of the Resistance committee pledged that they will never yield till the government accepts the demands of the memorandum for the release of Dhaner. They felt the sentence was the equivalent of punishing the entire fraternity of the farming community. The capacity of the People of Punjab to display such great tenacity in such a struggle to hit the authorities at their strongest point was very encouraging.

Supreme Court Dismissed the Appeal of Manjit Dhaner Chandigarh : Justice A M Khanilvakar and Justice Dinesh Maheshvary of The Honourable supreme court have delivered their judgment on the appeal against the judgment of honourable Punjab And Haryana High Court's decision of confirming the conviction of Manjeet Dhaner, a leading figure of Action Committee Against much talked about gang rape and murder of Kiranjeet Kaur of Mehal Kalan. In their judgement honourable Supreme court has confirmed the judgment delivered by the honourable High court in the above mentioned case by rejecting Manjeet Dhaner's appeal against his life imprisonment. In response to the verdict of the honourable court a spokesman of the action committee Mr Narain Dutt has said that it is not a just decision. The justice loving and democratic people of Mehal Kalan will continue their struggle to get justice. It is noteworthy that Mr Narain Dutt has been leading the struggle being fought on this issue for the past 22 years. He asserted that on July 29, 1997, Kiranjeet Kaur was abducted and murdered after gang rape when she was returning after having finished her daily studies at her college. Her dead body had been buried in the fields. The murderers who performed this heinous act were the sons of the notorious hooligans of the same village Mehal Kalan. They had full approach in political circles and powerful influence on police. That was why the police was targeting the innocent youth instead of nabbing the real culprits of Kiranjeet Kaur's murder. However it was only after a prolonged mass struggle that the police had to arrest the real murderers of Kiranjeet Kaur and they were given exemplary punishments of life imprisonments. It was due to mass struggle that the guilty police officers were punished and their accomplices having political faces were exposed among the masses. Incidenly, there occurred a clash between some people and Daleep Singh ,an old man belonging to the murderers of Kiranjeet Kaur in the court complex in Bamala. However the leaders of this action committee had nothing to do with this incident. Under a well thought out conspiracy 3 main leaders of the Action Committee. Narain Dutt, Manjeet Dhaner, and Prem Kumar were implicated in this murder case. The Honourable District Session Court, ignoring the truth, in its verdict sentenced all the three leaders for life imprisonment on 28-30 March, 2005. As a result of the vast mass movement the Governor had to pardon the punishment Punjab and Haryana High Court rejected the pardon in the case of Manjeet Dhaner and reinstated his life imprisonment and acquitted the remaining two. An appeal was filed in the Supreme Court in this context. On the whole, the famous advocate Kamini Jaiswal presented the case appropriately. However, the recent verdict has placed a challenge before the stages. 

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Frontier
Vol. 52, No. 18, Nov 3 - 9, 2019