The family members of a farmer, who died in an accident near a protest site in the National Capital Region (NCR), have been booked after they draped the farmer’s body in tricolor before his last rites, reported Press Trust of India.
The mother and brother of the farmer, the police said, violated the flag code of India, wherein draping the Tricolour in a civilian funeral is an offence.
The farmer had gone to the farmers’ protest site on the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border and died in an accident near there, police told the agency.
“Baljindra, a resident of Bari Bujhia village in Sehramau area had gone to participate in the farmers” agitation on January 23 with his friends. He died in a mishap on January 25 and is body was kept in a mortuary as that of an unidentified person. His family members came to know about the incident on February 2 and they brought the body here,” Superintendent of Police, Jai Prakash Yadav, said. “The family members covered the body with the national flag like that of a martyr and took it for last rites on Thursday. The video of the last rites went viral on social media after which an FIR was registered against Baljindra’s mother Jasvir Kaur, brother Gurvinder and one unidentified.”
Thousands of farmers are camping at Delhi borders since November demanding that the Centre take back the three agri laws enacted last September and guarantee minimum support price for crops. The Centre has maintained that the laws are pro-farmer.