Surat : Farmers lodge complaint against ACP and PI for vandalizing KSG office

Surat : A formal complaint was filed with the Surat Police Commissioner on behalf of the Khedut Samaj Gujarat (KSG) on Tuesday, after an event in which police officers had stormed the KSG office in Jahangirpura, arrested the farmer leaders, and then asked them to vacate the premises.

ACP BM Chaudhary, the Police Inspector of Rander, and around 40-50 additional police officers are named in the complaint, along with the Purshottam Farmers Co-operative Ginning and Processing Society Limited.

This is being done because of allegations that the KSG office at the society’s Jahangirpura premises was illegally sealed, resulting in property damage caused by a JCB machine.

At the Surat Police Commissioner’s office in Athwalines on Thursday, more over a hundred KSG-affiliated farmers showed up. The farmers filed a formal complaint against the above named individuals and organisations, accusing them of using coercive techniques, damaging property, breaking into the KSG office without permission, and unjustly detaining KSG officials, including President Jayesh Patel.

KSG has declared emphatically that the police’s activities constituted an unlawful exercise of power since they were carried out without a court warrant. With Purshottam Farmers Co-operative Ginning and Processing Society Limited, the organisation has a legal rental contract lasting 51 years. KSG’s legal position is bolstered by a pending civil application at a Surat court.

To hear KSG officials tell it, the police were influenced by society officials, who are in high places inside a powerful political party. Purportedly, the goal was to remove the KSG headquarters from the society’s building by violent means. KSG, the leading group in Gujarat working to improve farmers’ lives, has claimed that law enforcement has been unfair to the agricultural community.

KSG President Jayesh Patel complained that the police had not given him any kind of official warning or advance notice. He said, “It seems like political influences were behind the police department’s decision to proceed against us. The Commissioner of Police of Surat, Ajay Tomar, must conduct a full inquiry immediately. The perpetrators of this outrageous conduct must be identified and punished.