India charges 21 farmers after PM Modi effigy burned
Farmers face criminal charges amid four-month fight against power project linked to Modi’s billionaire friend Gautam Adani’s business group
NEW DELHI, India (MNTV) — Indian police have filed criminal cases against 21 farmers after protesters burned effigies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, escalating a four-month confrontation over an Adani-linked electricity transmission project crossing agricultural land in the western state of Gujarat.
The farmers were booked following a Sept. 17 protest in Jetpar village in Gujarat’s Morbi district, according to The Wire Hindi. The demonstration took place on Modi’s birthday, when supporters of his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), were holding celebrations across the country.
Farmers in Jetpar and about 35 surrounding villages have been protesting since June against high-voltage transmission lines being laid across agricultural land.
The project involves Halvad Transmission Limited, a special-purpose company of Adani Energy Solutions Limited, one of India’s largest private power transmission and distribution companies.
The dispute pits farming communities against an infrastructure project involving the business empire of Gautam Adani, one of India’s richest industrialists.
Adani has faced sustained political scrutiny in India over his perceived proximity to Modi, although both the government and Adani Group have rejected allegations of improper favoritism.
Police said the Sept. 17 demonstration was organized in opposition to celebrations of Modi’s birthday. According to the complaint, protesters poured flammable liquid on effigies of Modi and Shah before setting them on fire on a public road.
Authorities characterized the act more seriously than a symbolic political protest, accusing the farmers of engaging in a premeditated conspiracy, creating an “atmosphere of terror” and disturbing public peace.
Police invoked eight provisions of India’s Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the criminal code that replaced the colonial-era Indian Penal Code in 2024.
The accusations include criminal conspiracy, unlawful assembly, wrongful restraint, provocation intended to cause a riot, disobedience of a public servant’s order and intentional provocation to breach public peace.
Other provisions concern obstruction on a public road and negligent handling of fire or combustible materials.
Farmer leader Nehul Amritiya rejected the police case as “completely baseless” and said protesters would challenge it through India’s courts.
“The farmers of Gujarat will aptly respond to it,” Amritiya said, “We shall pursue this legal battle all the way to the Supreme Court.”
The criminal cases add a new dimension to a dispute that began over the use of farmland for electricity infrastructure but has increasingly become a confrontation involving political protest.
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