Leaders of Rashtriya Lok Dal, Bhartiya Janata Party, Samajwadi Party and the Congress visited the Tappal area on Monday. BJP's Raj Nath Singh said the Kisan leader Ram Babu Singh Katelia should be immediately released and compensation amount raised. State Congress president Rita Bahuguna Joshi told media persons that the state government was exploiting the farmers. She held Mayawati responsible for the death of the farmers in police firing. RLD president Ajit Singh was more forthright when he told media persons that the land acquisition by Mayawati was being done to benefit the builders close to her. Farmers were being cheated, he said.

In Agra district, the whole area under Etmadpur tehsil was simmering with discontent, as groups of farmers attacked police vans, beat up some cops and snatched two rifles which were later recovered. Farmers attacked the flood lights and vehicles of the construction company near Chaugan and Garhi Rami, later the agitated crowd beat up a police cop and snatched two rifles from a patrol party.

Police claimed late Monday night that the rifles had been recovered. The whole Chalesar area has now turned into a police cantonment with security beefed up.

"The new problem for the state government would be that all the land owners who had been forced to part away with their agricultural fields would demand the same rate of compensation. Originally the project was confined to building an Expressway to reduce travelling time between Delhi and Agra. In stages, the construction company began acquiring land for its real estate business and development of new townships on both sides of the Expressway," said green activist Ravi Singh.

The question now being hotly debated in Agra and neighboring districts is whether state agencies should acquire land for the builders to develop townships. "This real estate business will fuel land prices and in the long run disturb the ecology of the region in the sensitive and fertile Doab region. To me it looks like we are firmly in the grip of land developers, colonizers, builders who call the shots and manipulate political decision making," says Braj Mandal Heritage Conservation Society President Surendra Sharma.

"In the whole of eco-sensitive Taj Trapezium Zone, one can see massive land acquisition by various government agencies for builders and construction companies for roads, townships, complexes. The concrete jungles thoughtlessly coming up in all parts right from Vrindavan to Firozabad and Aligarh to Bharatpur border, will fundamentally alter physical conditions which may not be environmentally safe. Unfortunately our politics now revolves around these land grabbers, many of whom are MPs and MLAs of political parties," commented social activist Mukesh Jain.