32 farmer unions from Punjab, agitating against the revolutionary farm laws have now decided to hold a massive protest against lockdown on May 8. The farmers have also asked others to defy the lockdown and join the protest.
“The 32 farmer unions of Punjab have decided to protest against the lockdown on May 8 (in Punjab) where our field workers will come out on streets and ask people to open their shops and not follow the lockdown,” farmer leader Balbir Singh Rajewal said at the Singhu Border.
Punjab farmers to hold massive protest against lockdown on May 8 amid rise in Covid cases
Track latest news on #COVID19 here: https://t.co/SkX1kxFxr8 pic.twitter.com/ra0UdGNf4f
— Economic Times (@EconomicTimes) May 5, 2021
The fact that the alleged farmers are even planning to congregate together amidst the burgeoning second wave of the pandemic where people are falling like flies should certainly tell one about their real intentions.
Punjab on Wednesday saw record 182 fatalities from Covid-19, bringing the toll to 9,825 as 8,015 fresh coronavirus cases — the biggest single-day spike took the tally to 4,07,509. With such scary numbers, the farmers are still planning to go ahead with the protest and the liberal media is preferring to observe a stoic silence, rather than questioning them.
While Kumbh Mela was demonized and ostracized by the same section of the media, the alleged farmers are being given the free pass.
As reported previously by TFI, the covid cases across Delhi and Punjab accounting for the highest number of the UK mutant variant of the virus have seemingly come from the Farmers who had participated in the protests.
The direct correlation between the farmer’s protest and UK mutant strain was explained by one netizen named Navroop Singh who took to Twitter to post a nuanced thread that neatly dissected how the farmers’ protests played their part in the catastrophe.
UK strain has been most reported in Delhi with figures touching 50% in latest spread. The UK strain was first found in Punjab when NRIs got the strain with 80% cases in Punjab of UK strain. How did it spread from Punjab to UK – via Farmers Protests and the relay race of Villages.
— Navroop Singh (@TheNavroopSingh) April 27, 2021
According to several media reports, it was clear that in the month of March, 81 per cent of the 401 samples sent by the Punjab government for genome sequencing had tested positive for the UK variant of Covid-19. Meaning, the UK variant had landed in the state long back, before the testing even took place.
Furthermore, Punjab’s Doaba region comprising of Kapurthala and Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar districts contributed to 25.6 per cent of all COVID related deaths on March 19. The Twitter user pointed out that these two districts had a good NRI population that travelled to and fro from the UK to visit the ancestral properties and unwittingly brought the virus.
“About 60-70 per cent of those living in Doaba have a relative abroad. They keep returning to their ancestral homes every year, which has proven to be a problem for us as the new UK variant spreads,” a healthcare department official was quoted as saying by The Print.
The ‘virus carrier’ farmers of the Doaba region soon marched towards Delhi for the farmers’ protests and camped in and around the Singhu border. Aided by the Arhatiyas (middlemen) and the support of the AAP government which provided them with lodging facilities, the virus quietly made its way into the capital.
The farmer’s protest has already caused loss of thousands of crores to the exchequer and thus the centre should step up and immediately stop the protest planned for May 8 to stop it from becoming a super spreader event.