40-Year-Old Protesting Farmer Dies At Singhu Border After Consuming Poison

A 40-year-old farmer who was a part of several other protesting farmers at Singhu on the Delhi-Haryana border died by suicide on Saturday after consuming a poisonous substance.

The farmer has been identified as Amarinder Singh and is a resident of Punjab's Fatehgarh Sahib district. His friends told media that he had taken this extreme step as the government had refused to listen to their demands- that the agriculture laws be repealed, and the legal guarantees are offered at the minimum support price, reported Deccan Herald.

The man was rushed to a local hospital in Sonipat where he died, said Sonipat's Kundli police station's inspector Ravi Kumar.

His body was sent to the mortuary at a government hospital where a post-mortem was scheduled for Sunday morning. As the police were unable to trace the family members of the farmer, his body is likely to be handed over to other farmers at the protest site.

This is the second farmer death reported in this month; last week a 75-year-old farmer was found dead at a protest site near the Delhi-Ghaziabad border.

Farmers from across the country - mainly from Punjab and Haryana, have been camping at different border points of Delhi for over 40 days demanding that the government repeal the three central farm laws.

The Centre has said that the laws are major reforms in the agricultural sector that will remove the middlemen and allow farmers to sell anywhere in the country.

But the farmers fear that the laws may eliminate the safety cushion of minimum support price and do away with the mandi system, putting them under the mercy of corporate giants.