The farmers were holding a protest demanding enhanced compensation for their land which has been acquired by the government for building a 1320 MW power plant at Karchana.
Enraged over the death, hundreds of farmers indulged in stone throwing and set ablaze several police vehicles and squatted on the rail tracks disrupting movement of trains on the busy Delhi-Howrah route, police said.
According to reports, five women police constables have been held hostage by the farmers. The trouble sparked off when the police tried to forcibly take four farmers, who had embarked on an indefinite fast for the past 14 days, to hospital after their condition deteriorated. Hundreds of farmers who had assembled at the site of the fast at Karchana attacked the police forcing the latter to retaliate, officials said.
While the farmers claimed that one farmer identified as Gulab Chandra Verma was killed in the tussle, Uttar Pradesh Additional Director-General of Police, Law and Order Brijlal said the death was caused by “heart attack” and was in no way connected with the agitation.