The videos also show farmers were not walking single file on flanks but occupied the entire width of the road. “It was as if they had decided not to give the right of way to the vehicles rushing at them at great speed. They were being defiant,” said an official in Lucknow not willing to be quoted.The jeep’s driver, he said, appeared to have been provoked by farmers not giving way despite the siren blaring at full volume. That police siren fitted on the jeep was another violation of the law but in Uttar Pradesh it is fairly common to see ‘dabang’ people using the siren fitted in their private cars. It is a show of their self-image, their clout and reach. But farmers walking on the road seem oblivious to the sound of the siren. They continued walking quietly, deliberately and they did not look back, the official pointed out. It was only after the jeep made the impact and hit the first phalanx that one or two of them turned their head but by then it was too late.The speed at which the Thar jeep, fitted with a siren, hurtled down the road suggests the driver was infuriated at the show of defiance, observers believe. The farmers did not expect the jeep would be driven into them. Farmers claim one of their leaders was the main target and it was pre-meditated murder. Officials believe the defence in all probability claim it to be a case of road rage. Eyewitness accounts say that the speeding vehicles had to slow down and stop because of police barricades put on the road and a police bus parked there. The occupants, they claim, got down from the vehicles and escaped through the cane fields. When farmers chased them, they opened fire. The policemen, accuse farmers, covered the fleeing men and lobbed tear gas shells to stop farmers in pursuit.
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