Several people including a police officer were injured in the violence.
The Delhi Police have arrested 44 people, including the man who carried a sword during clashes at Singhu border between Delhi and Haryana, the epicentre of the two-month long farmers' protest against three central laws. At Ghazipur, one of the other protest sites, thousands of demonstrators dug in on the Delhi-Meerut Expressway, defying the Ghaziabad administration's ultimatum to vacate the area. With the crowd swelling after a standoff and a tearful outburst by one of the senior leaders of the movement on Thursday, security forces in large numbers were called in again.
The man with the sword was believed to be one of the protesting farmers who had allegedly attacked a group that barged into the protest site in Singhu, despite heavy police presence, vandalised the protesters' tents and broke their washing machines.
The police had to fire tear gas shells and use batons to break up a clash between farmers and a large group of men claiming to be local residents who threw stones at each other. Several people including Delhi Police officer Pradeep Paliwal were injured in the violence.
Thousands of farmers reached protest sites on Friday and more are expected to join soon as union leaders accused the government of trying to destroy their peaceful agitation and sought the support of people in observing a fast on January 30, Mahatma Gandhi's death anniversary, from 9 am to 5 pm.
Probing the Republic Day violence, the Delhi Police has asked nine farmer leaders - Rakesh Tikait, Pawan Kumar, Raj Kishore Singh, Tajender Singh Virk, Jitender Singh, Trilochan Singh, Gurmukh Singh, Harpreet Singh and Jagtar Singh Bajwa - to join the investigation.
At Ghazipur border, one of the other protest sites, thousands of farmers from western Uttar Pradesh joined the Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) members who have stayed put on the Delhi-Meerut Expressway despite the Ghaziabad administration's ultimatum to vacate the area.
Around 3,000 security personnel, including those from the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC), the Rapid Action Force (RAF) in anti-riot gears and civil police, were posted in and around Ghazipur protest site, senior police officer Indiapuram Anshu Jain told news agency PTI.
The size of the crowd, which increased manifold overnight after an emotional Rakesh Tikait said he was ready to die for the protest, was estimated around five to six thousand by districts officials while BKU office-bearers present there claimed it to be upwards of 10,000 on Friday evening.
The GIC ground near Mahaveer Chowk in Muzaffarnagar was packed, a sea of people congregating to back the protesters at UP Gate in Ghazipur. Hundreds of tractors with the tricolour and flags of farm unions were parked along city roads, disrupting traffic movement.
Several opposition parties condemned the crackdown on farmers. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi warned that the farmers' agitation will spread across the country if not resolved soon and asserted that the only solution to the issue was to throw the new agricultural laws in the "wastepaper basket".
Farmers have been protesting at three sites on the outskirts of Delhi since November against the central government's new agricultural laws that they fear will leave them at the mercy of large corporates. Eleven rounds of talks between the two sides have failed with the protesters demanding nothing short of a complete rollback.
(With inputs from PTI)
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