Traffic resumed at the Khanauri farmers protest site on Friday, more than a year after the Punjab-Haryana border point was closed due to the agitation.
A senior Punjab police official said the vehicular traffic resumed this evening after the barricades put up to thwart the farmers' march to Delhi were removed.
Earlier on Thursday, traffic resumed through another protest epicentre -- the Shambhu border point (Shambhu-Ambala Highway) -- a day after Punjab Police detained protesting farmers and demolished their temporary structures at the site.
Haryana Police had removed roadblocks on their side of the road both at Shambhu and Khanauri.
On Thursday, angry farmers held protests at several places in Punjab including Moga, Tarn Taran, Muktsar and Faridkot against the previous evening crackdown on the protesters.
The protesting farmers had lashed out at the AAP government for detaining their leaders and removing protesters from the Shambhu and Khanauri border points, where they had been camping since February 13 last year after their march to Delhi was thwarted by security personnel.
As the protests got stretched, farmers had built temporary structures on the highway to accommodate protesters and sustain their agitation.
Haryana Police had fortified the Shambhu and Khanauri border points with cement blocks, iron nails and barbed wire to scuttle any attempt by the farmers from Punjab to move towards the national capital.
Thus, the traffic on the Shambhu-Ambala and Sangrur-Jind roads remained closed for over a year.
On Thursday, security personnel from Haryana removed the cement barricades on their side of Shambhu-Ambala Highway, opening the road for traffic, while barricading on the road at the Khanauri border point was also removed and the road cleared for traffic on Friday.
The Samyukta Kisan Morcha (Non-Political) and the Kisan Mazdoor Morcha were spearheading the protests at Shambhu and Khanauri.
Both the bodies slammed the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in Punjab for evicting the protesters and detaining farmer leaders on Wednesday.
Punjab Police had detained several farmer leaders, including Sarwan Singh Pandher and Jagjit Singh Dallewal, in Mohali on Wednesday as they were returning after a meeting with a central delegation led by Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan in Chandigarh.
