Jaipur: Several people were injured in a scuffle between protesting farmers and police personnel in Lunkaransar town of Bikaner on Friday.More than 500 farmers reached along with stray animals at tehsil headquarters and let the cattle loose after breaking the locks. To disperse the crowd, police resorted to lathicharge and fired tear gas in which 10 policemen including ASP and DSP and a few farmers were injured.During the clashes, about four vehicles were damaged. Over 12 people have been detained as a preventive measure, though situation remains tense."They broke the gate locks and forced stray animals inside the premises of tehsil office. When they were dispersed from there, they reached Bikaner-Suratgarh national highway blocking the traffic on the road. When we went to remove them, farmers started pelting stones," said Sawai Singh Godara, SP, Bikaner.Farmers were agitating over reducing the width of about 60 water outlets falling under Kanwar Sain lift project. They were on dharna for past eleven days at sub-divisional headquarters and demanded the administration to increase the size of these outlets.Officials though claim that their outlets were re-sized as per the norms of irrigation department and availability of water. We had several rounds of talks with them where they were told why outlet size was reduced. It cannot happen that they overdraw while farmers at the tail-end are deprived of water," said Anil Gupta, collector, Bikaner.In addition to that, cultivators also complained of crops getting damaged by stray cattle in their area. They asked government to set up a gaushala and arrange fodder for cattle.Other officials maintained that the administration was considerate to cultivators' demands and held parleys with them."They were satisfied with the talks and went back. But then suddenly someone gave a provocative speech and they got agitated again and came back along with 1,000 stray animals and occupied the highway," said a police official.

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