Fear stalks the narrow cemented roads of Bahi Parsavnath and Balaguda, the two Patidar-dominated Madhya Pradesh villages on the Mhow-Neemuch highway, where a police crackdown is on. The two villages, which are 15km away from Mandsaur, were the epicentre of farmers’ protest where police firing on June 6 left five people dead after which angry farmers set fire to scores of trucks along the highway. “I thought you were police in civil dress because of the white SUV you are travelling in,” he says. The villagers do not know where the three men who were picked up are being held or the charges against them. The men deny that anyone from the village was involved in the violence on the highway but say farmers reacted to police brutality.

Source: Hindustan Times June 11, 2017 08:29 UTC