Ambala youth who climbed atop police van to close water cannon charged with attempt to murder, rioting

A youth from Ambala, whose video and photos of jumping onto a police van to turn off the water cannon that was being blasted at farmers marching towards Delhi went viral, has been booked with an attempt to murder and rioting, reports said. According to a report in The Times of India, the protester identified as Navdeep Singh has been “booked under charges of the attempt to murder, rioting, and violation of Covid-19 norms and made a co-accused with Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) Haryana state president Gurnam Singh Charuni and others”. The case has been filed at the Parao police station in Haryana by Ambala police. Singh is the son of farmer leader Jai Singh of Jalbera village of Ambala district, the report added. “While protesting peacefully, we were demanding a passage to Delhi but the police blocked our passage. We have all the right to question the government and protest if any anti-people laws are passed,” the TOI report quoted him as saying. Singh, who was protesting with farmers from over 250 villages, was quoted by The Quint as telling local news channels channel that the bravery shown by farmers gave him the “courage to climb up the police van and turn of the water cannon”. Thousands of farmers from Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh have been marching towards the National Capital Delhi to hold a peaceful protest at a north Delhi ground. They have faced police barricades, water cannons and lathi-charge at various checkpoints along the march that started on 25 November. Protesters were stopped at various border entry points into Delhi on Friday as well. However, after hours of a standoff that saw police using teargas shells, water cannons, and multi-layer barriers to block the protesters and the farmers pelting stones and breaking barricades in some places in their determination to push through as part of their ‘Delhi Chalo’ march.