On February 13, sometime between 4 p.m. and 4.30 p.m., Davinder Singh said a tear bomb hit him. He, along with many other farmers, was protesting at the Shambhu border between Punjab and Haryana when tear gas canisters, “way past their expiry date, started dropping from the sky”. “It went straight into my left eye,” mumbled the 22-year-old who is undergoing treatment at the Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) in Chandigarh.
“I have at least 15 to 20 videos of the incident. When I fell on the ground, they fired three-four tear bombs so that no one could come and pick me up. Those tear gas shells with expiry dates of 2014, 2015, 2016 are still there… If they deny it, I have the videos,” he told The Hindu. His friend Sanamveer Singh, who was standing a few feet away at the time, said, “When Davinder got injured, we were standing in the wheat fields just below the bridge at Shambhu [border]. When I saw that he fell down, I rushed to pick him up but more tear bombs were dropped. Yet, people came and we managed to pick him up and took him to the Community Health Centre in Banur from where he was shifted to Chandigarh in an ambulance.”
