India farmer protests: as Rihanna, Greta Thunberg voice support, New Delhi ramps up security

Iron spikes, steel barricades and hundred of riot police have been added to protest sites outside the Indian capital, following last month’s violence

Meanwhile, Rihanna, Greta Thunberg and other figures have commented on the protests on social media, drawing the Indian foreign ministry’s ire

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Indian security personnel are seen on Tuesday through barbed wire placed as farmers protest at the Ghazipur Border near New Delhi. Photo: EPA

Published: 2:35pm, 3 Feb 2021Updated: 10:22pm, 3 Feb 2021

Indian authorities heavily increased security at three main protest sites outside New Delhi’s border on Tuesday, adding iron spikes, steel barricades and hundreds of riot police in an attempt to stop tens of thousands of demonstrating farmers from entering the capital, as celebrity campaigners Rihanna and Greta Thunberg voiced their support for the protests.

In Ghazipur, one of the protest sites, iron nails were embedded along the main highway. Cemented barricades were wrapped with coils of barbed wires as government forces guarded what looked like a security fortress.

Barbed wire and barricades placed by security personnel are seen at the Delhi-Ghazipur Border on Tuesday. Photo: EPA

Images of the barricades were widely shared on social media, with many comparing them to heavily militarised border fences.

Devender Singh, a protesting farmer from central Uttar Pradesh state, said the new security arrangements were intended to scare them away. “But farmers won’t run away so easily,” he said.

The months-long farmer protests have rattled Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government. Tens of thousands of farmers have camped on the outskirts of the city, braving the cold and rain, in a largely peaceful protest against new agriculture reform laws they say will devastate their income and make farmers vulnerable to corporate greed.