A concrete mixer was at work at the Ghazipur border on Sunday, pouring cement mixture between two barricades under the supervision of police to build a wall that would cut off the protesting farmers, a day after Internet was shut down at all three protest sites on Delhi’s borders and one journalist was arrested.

Over the weekend the government has moved to isolate all three big protest sites — Singhu, Tikri and Ghazipur — by choking physical access and flow of information.

The Samyukta Kisan Morcha, the banner under which farmers are agitating for repeal of three new farm laws and the enactment of a legal guarantee for minimum support prices, condemned the clampdown and revealed that more than 100 protesters were missing since Republic Day.

The clampdown was an attempt to prevent “real facts” about the peaceful conduct of the protest from getting out, the Morcha said, adding that having “manufactured” a narrative, the government was trying to ensure it did not change.

A barbed wire fence set up at the Ghazipur border on Sunday Prem Singh

Union leaders pointed to the Prime Minister’s radio show Mann Ki Baat in which he said the nation was saddened by the “insult to the National Flag”. While some protesters had raised the Nishan Sahib and farmer union flags at the Red Fort, these were hoisted on an empty pole beneath the Tricolour.

“The government does not want the facts to reach the protesting farmers.... It is fearful of the coordinated work of the farmers’ unions across different protest sites and is trying to cut off communication between them. This is undemocratic and illegal,” the Morcha said in a statement.

It questioned the sequestering of the protest sites “from a long distance, disallowing common people and mediapersons from reaching the Singhu border”, and said this was “also to disrupt the supply of food and water”. Many Delhi residents had been regularly visiting the protest sites and volunteering there.

The crackdown was criticised also by Meghalaya governor Satyapal Malik, who was the governor of Jammu and Kashmir in August 2019 when the state was split into two Union territories.

“I would warn that suppressing any issue in the world is not a solution. By pressing, it goes down for some time, but then it emerges with even bigger force,” Malik was quoted by news agency ANI as saying.

An earthmover deployed to dig a trench at the Singhu border on Sunday PTI

The Morcha, which represents around 500 farmer groups from across the country, condemned the detention of journalists, Mandeep Punia in particular, in connection with “false and fabricated charges out of the government’s fear of being exposed for its real conspiracy and out of fear of the rising strength of the farmers’ movement”.

Punia, who had reported on the fracas at Singhu on Friday when a group of men walked into the heavily barricaded protest site and attacked the farmers in front of a large police contingent, was arrested on Saturday on charges of “misbehaving” with the police.

While the Morcha will meet on Monday to chalk out its future course, the 32 Punjab unions that are part of it met on Sunday and decided to form a six-member committee to gather information on those missing since the tractor rally and provide legal assistance to those arrested, including journalists.

PTI reported that the Morcha had asked for any information on those missing to be shared on the phone number 8198022033.

The protesting farmers at Ghazipur on Sunday PTI

The barricading has made it difficult for people to access the protest sites from the highways and to send supplies, but the pathways from the adjoining areas are being used and local residents are extremely supportive, farmer leaders said.

Reacting to the Prime Minister’s statement on Saturday that the offer to suspend the three farm laws for 18 months still stood, farmer leader Buta Singh Burjgill said at a news conference at Singhu: “Mercy petitions only delay the inevitable; it seldom stops the execution.”

The farmers describe the three laws as their “death warrant”.

Since January 28, the fastest mobilisation among the three sites has been at Ghazipur, where Rakesh Tikait has become a rallying point. Former BJP ally Shiromani Akali Dal’s Sukhbir Singh Badal visited him on Sunday to honour him and promise full support. Several Opposition leaders have visited Ghazipur since Thursday, when the Uttar Pradesh government tried to evict the protesters.

Referring to Modi’s statement, Tikait said he too wanted the issue resolved through talks that would respect the Prime Minister’s “honour” and that of the farmers.

His elder brother Naresh Tikait said in Muzaffarnagar that these bills were “fire” that would cause damage. “If the laws are repealed then the government does not stand to lose anything…. Accept your fault, and hold talks,” he said.