Ahead of the Bharti Kisan Union (Ekta Sidhupur)’s Kisan Mahapanchayat in Faridkot on Wednesday, police stopped and detained a large number of farmers travelling to the district from various parts of Bathinda and Mansa. Their state president Jagjit Singh Dallewal had already been placed under house arrest at his residence in Faridkot district.Police teams were deployed at several locations and checkpoints were set up to stop farmers from proceeding towards Faridkot.Following the police action, farmers blocked roads at different locations. In Bathinda district, protesters blocked Rampura-Maur road at Mandi Kalan village. Farmers in Mansa district also organised protest marches in some villages. Some of them were taken away from Talwandi Aklia village in a police bus.Farmer leaders asserted that attending meetings and protests was their democratic right and criticised the police for preventing them from travelling to Faridkot.The mahapanchayat comes amid an agitation by farmers that has been continuing for more than five months. Farmers have been protesting outside the Primary Co-operative Agricultural Development Banks (PADBs) in 12 districts of Punjab.Their demands include compensation for two farmers of Hari Nau village who had died by suicide in March this year, implementation of a One-Time Settlement (OTS) scheme in the PADBs on the lines of commercial banks, return of blank cheques taken from farmers and compensation for items allegedly stolen during the farmers’ protest at the Shambhu-Khanouri border.Senior farmer leader Kaka Singh Kotra condemned the police action and maintained that the Kisan Mahapanchayat would still be held in Faridkot. Meanwhile, a large number of farmers also gheraoed the Bathinda Cantonment police station in protest.