WATCH: 'Break heads of protestors', Karnal SDM tells cops deployed to tackle protesting farmers

Hours after Haryana Police lathi-charged protesting farmers at Karnal’s Gharaunda toll plaza on Saturday, a video of the Sub Divisional Magistrate has gone viral on social media in which he can be heard ordering police to "break the head of the protestors".

In the video, Karnal's Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM) Ayush Sinha is seen standing in front of a group of policemen and instructing them that no protesting farmer should go beyond a certain barricade in the area.

As part of their ongoing agitation against the farm laws, the farmers had decided to hold a protest against BJP leaders, for which they had assembled at the Bastara toll plaza near Karnal. They were to march to the venue of the meeting where Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, state BJP president Om Prakash Dhankar and other senior leaders of the party were present.

Some 10 people were injured on Saturday after the state police lathi-charged a group of farmers. Though the police claimed that only mild force was used as the protesters were blocking the highway and affecting traffic movement, pictures from the spot show the farmers, who were lathicharged, with injuries and bloodstains on their clothes.

Meanwhile, Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Chautala said that the 2018 batch IAS officer Ayush Sinha will face action.

Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, on the other hand on Saturday termed the lathicharge on farmers in Haryana's Karnal a "government-sponsored attack" and said such a "vicious assault" was not only unacceptable but outright condemnable.