“Is this the kind of place to pass through at night time?” asked Anita Singh, a middle-aged woman who was trying to make her way through a bushy dirt path on Thursday to reach the spot where farmers have been protesting in Ghazipur for 78 days.
Ghazipur in Uttar Pradesh lies on Delhi’s southeast border.
Singh, a social worker, had travelled 20 km from Dwarka in southwest Delhi to express her support for the protesting farmers, who have occupied a stretch of flyover on the Delhi-Meerut Expressway.
On January 26, when farmer-unions had organised a tractor parade, some protestors from the site had smashed through barricades placed by Delhi Police to reach the Red Fort, where they violently clashed with the police and unfurled Sikh flags.
Since then, the Delhi police have built formidable fortifications on the highway: at least three layers of iron and concrete boulders alternating with concertina wires.
This has made it impossible to access the protest site from the…