Sonic weapons and lubricants: How cops have made farmers’ road to Delhi slippery

On January 26, 2021, Delhi Police personnel were caught unawares as a planned tractor rally by protesting farmers deviated from their permitted route and entered the heart of Delhi by bursting through barricades.

Containers and trucks kept at Delhi’s borders with Haryana and Uttar Pradesh did little to prevent the farmers from barging in, with a section even breaching the Red Fort and hoisting a flag.

Then, the police had to rush logistics to the border areas of Singhu, Ghazipur, and Tikri, to prevent a larger number of farmers from entering the city.

As northern India witnesses a repeat of the 2020–21 protests, with farmers demanding a law guaranteeing Minimum Support Price (MSP), stringent security arrangements have been put in place this time, ranging from tear gas drones to sonic weapons.

POLICE COME UP WITH UNIQUE TACTICS AND EQUIPMENT

Apart from stationing rapid action forces and cops in riot gear at Delhi’s border points, Delhi Police has come up with unique tactics to prevent farmers from moving into Delhi.

All entry points towards Delhi from the Haryana and Uttar Pradesh side have been fenced with multiple layers of barricades, concrete blocks, and containers. This time, the containers have been filled with soil and bricks so that they can’t be removed. Makeshift jails have also been set up at specific locations.

The Singhu border between Delhi and Haryana, which was the hotbed of the protests in 2020-21, resembles a conflict zone with barbed wire, jersey barriers, and iron nails fixed to the ground to puncture tyres of vehicles and tractors of farmers.

In fact, intelligence inputs have revealed that farmers have modified their tractors and fitted them with hydraulic tools to remove barricades. Fire-resistant hard-shell trailers have been readied to fight tear-gas shells and the horsepower of the tractors has been doubled to ferry a larger number of farmers.

Several layers of metal barricading have been followed by a layer of large stone boulders. Next lies a layer of nails, and a row of concrete barricades. A few metres ahead lies another layer of stone boulders, followed by another layer of concrete barricades.

To ensure that farmers are not able to easily remove the barricades, cement has been poured in gaps between them to make them permanent. Moreover, a section of a road near the Singhu border has also been dug up to impede the farmers’ march.

Rural roads bordering Haryana have also been sealed to stop the protesters from moving ahead.

On Wednesday, police added a new weapon to their armoury — sonic weapons.

Visuals showed Delhi Police deploying Long Range Acoustic Devices or LRADS along the national capital border. The LRAD can shoot beams of very loud sound at targets. The high-pitched sound has the capability to damage one’s hearing ability.

TEAR-GAS EQUIPPED DRONES USED FOR FIRST TIME
This time, to keep track of the farmers’ movement, police have extensively deployed drones.

On Tuesday, as the situation on the Shambhu border between Haryana and Punjab turned chaotic, Haryana police used drones to launch tear gas shells. This was the first time that drones were used by law enforcement agencies in India to launch tear gas shells.

According to a report in The Hindu, this drone-based tear smoke launcher was developed by the Tear Smoke Unit (TSU) of the Border Security Force (BSF) in 2022. It was developed to safeguard India’s borders with Pakistan and Bangladesh.

These drones, developed by Drone Imaging and Information Service of Haryana Limited (DRIISHYA), have the ability to drop teargas shells that can cover up to 500 metres. They also have the capability to deploy multiple grenades simultaneously.

On Wednesday, to combat the UAVs, the farmers were seen flying kites to get the drones tangled in the strings. The farmers were seen trying to crash the drones by entangling the long strings of kites to the rotors of the UAVs.

Moreover, to beat the burning sensation caused by tear gas, farmers at the Shambhu border were seen using multani mitti on their faces. Multani mitti, used as face packs, is said to have a cooling effect.

LUBRICANTS TO PREVENT FARMERS ON HORSES
That’s not all. Police personnel have also stocked lubricants to use on roads if the farmers try to cross the border using horses. In 2020, a group of Nihang Sikhs, expressing solidarity with the farmers, jumped the police barricades on their horses.

Around 55 Nihang Sikhs joined the farmers’ protest with their horses on January 26, 2021, and clashed with security personnel at multiple places in Delhi using batons and swords.

This time round, the road might be very slippery for them.

With the Singhu border turning into a fortress, people had to cross it on foot as police blocked vehicular movement on Tuesday.

Similar arrangements have also been made at the Tikri border on the Delhi-Rohtak road. Here, large nets, generally used for fencing stadiums, have been set up to protect police from any stone pelting by the agitating farmers.

If the police weren’t prepared during the last farmers’ protest, this time they are well-equipped and farmers might find the road to Delhi as tough as nails.