Indian police on Monday cordoned off two villages outside New Delhi after deadly clashes with farmers who allege they were forced from their land to make room for a motorway. Two policemen and a farmer were killed during the weekend near the suburb of Noida, east of the capital, in violent protests against farmland designated for the new motorway.
Farmers also fought with police in Agra, 155 miles (250 kilometres) away, where the planned motorway is also routed. The Uttar Pradesh state government said the farmers had been given generous compensation. "Most of the farmers have already collected their money. There is no way they have been cheated or exploited," senior government official Shashank Shekhar Singh told AFP in Uttar Pradesh's capital city, Lucknow. The villages of Bhatta and Parsaul close to Noida, a prosperous suburb of the capital, were surrounded by police to prevent a rally by opposition politicians.
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