PANCHKULA: Within hours after the orders of the Punjab and Haryana high court directing the Panchkula administration to remove pucca morcha (Haryana Panch and Sarpanch) protestors from housing board light point by 10 pm on Saturday, the Chandigarh and Panchkula police vacated the site peacefully late evening.
Housing board light point is the busiest stretch of Panchkula and connects the city with Chandigarh.
Panchkula DCP, Sumer Pratap Singh along with seven platoons of police force of other districts of Haryana having 85 personnel in each platoon headed by a DSP level officer and women police officers reached the protest site at 8pm.
The police first talked to the protestors to vacate the site and when a heated argument occurred between them, the police gave a last warning to vacate the site.
When protestors found themselves trapped with the police force from Panchkula and Chandigarh side, they agreed to vacate the site. The police then offered the protesters to continue their sit-in at the "dharna ground", earmarked by the district administration behind HAFED building in Sector-5 and asked them to move there.
The protestors raised slogans against the Haryana government and chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar for forcefully removing them, but the police cleared the site peacefully within half an hour.
The protestors were asked to sit in the Haryana roadways buses arranged to vacate the site and leave them to the dharna ground. The police force also seized the protestors' tent, mattresses, other belongings, and also removed the barricades installed on the Chandigarh-Panchkula border.
The border will be opened for public soon.
Earlier during the day, the Panchkula administration after talks with the protestors opened a half route (from Chandigarh towards Panchkula).
Keeping in mind the examination of children in schools and residents, the protesters agreed to open half route and continue their dharna at the housing board light point.
