PUNE: Far from taking exemplary action against the policemen who fired at protesting farmers killing four of them, the Pune rural police on Thursday turned the tables and arrested five farmers for attacking the police and damaging their property. They were also charged with criminal conspiracy. Worse, the two officers who were seen firing at farmers running away from the police in television clippings are now facing a routine government...

-The Hindu   Adding a new twist to the farmers' protest in which three persons were killed on Tuesday near Pune, Maharashtra Home Minister R.R. Patil told the Legislative Assembly on Wednesday that first there was private firing from an Indigo or Indica car and that person fled after injuring a local. The injured person filed a police complaint and pieces of the bullet were found and sent for examination, he...

Four farmers were killed in Police firing as a protracted farmers’ agitation against an urban water-supply project in Pune district turned violent on Tuesday afternoon. Several farmers and 20 policemen were injured, two of them seriously. More than 300 protesters were rounded up. A strong crackdown restored traffic on the blocked Pune-Mumbai expressway, Pune rural police said. Around 1.30pm, more than 400 villagers, agitating for years against an urban water supply project they...

A farmers' protest against diversion of irrigation water and land acquisition turned ugly on Tuesday, as three people including a woman, were killed when the police opened fire to quell the agitation which became violent at Bahur village near the Pune-Mumbai express highway. The firing occurred around 11 a.m. Thousands of farmers had gathered in the morning to protest diversion of water from the Pavana Dam to the twin industrial township...

-DNA   The Maharashtra government on Wednesday ordered a judicial inquiry by a retired high court judge into Tuesday’s Police firing that killed three farmers, including a 45-year-old woman, while the Pune district collector ordered the Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) to stop the water pipeline project. The collector also ordered an inquiry by the sub-divisional officer (SDO) of Maval into the firing incident. On Tuesday, Sandeep Karnik, Pune (rural) SP, said the...