India burns over Agnipath

One person died in police firing in Telangana’s Secunderabad, trains went up in flames and vehicles were attacked, as railway stations and highways turned into a battleground in many states on Friday over Agnipath, the contentious defence recruitment scheme.

Protests continued in UP, Bihar and Haryana for a third successive day, and spread to Indore in Madhya Pradesh, Bengal, Odisha, Jharkhand and Punjab even as the Air Force said its recruitment under the new scheme will start on June 24.

The Army said it will begin the initial exercise within two days and the Navy promised to issue the notification next week.

Assurances by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Home Minister Amit Shah and the Army chief failed to cut ice with hordes of angry youth. Over 300 trains have been affected and more than 200 cancelled so far due to the protests, the Railways said. Coaches of seven trains have so far been set ablaze by protesters, officials said.

In Bihar, protesters attacked the house of Deputy CM Renu Devi and the car of a BJP MLA. State BJP president Sanjay Jaiswal’s residence in Bettiah town was also vandalised but the leader claimed the attackers were not job aspirants.

In UP, protesters set ablaze the Jattari police station and a panchayat building in the Aligarh district and torched several police vehicles and eight buses. Sources said protesters also fired gunshots and clashed with police.

In Ballia, an empty train was set on fire, police officials said, adding that attempts were also made to set ablaze railway tracks in Varanasi but the police were able to thwart it. Protests were also reported from Gorakhpur, Bulandshahr, Azamgarh, Firozabad, Mathura and some other places.

In Telangana, over 1,500 young men, who claimed they had cleared the Army medical and physical fitness rounds and were preparing for the written exam, gathered at the Secunderabad station.

They said the test was postponed half a dozen times because of Covid-19 and were upset they will have to either enrol afresh under Agnipath or lose the opportunity altogether having crossed the eligibility age.

Job aspirants set fire to a few coaches of the halted trains, vandalised property inside the station and pelted stones at the security forces. One person was killed in police firing and at least a dozen injured were taken to the nearby Gandhi Hospital.

Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao said the youth, Damera Rakesh from Warangal district, was killed in the firing by railway forces and announced an ex gratia of Rs 25 lakh and a job for his family.

"The boy from a backward community died because of the central government's evil policies," KCR said in his condolence statement.

Secunderabad is the headquarters of the South Central Railway and also has a vast cantonment area.

“We peacefully began our protest at 8.30 am but the police action provoked us to react violently. Who gave them the orders to fire at us, do we look like some terrorists,” one youth asked.

As protesters rampaged, passengers deserted the usually bustling station. Glass panes of AC coaches were shattered and food stalls on the platforms were destroyed. Protestors pushed the luggage carts from the platforms, motorbikes and other parcel materials from the trains onto the tracks and torched them.

The ruling TRS in Telangana and the BJP blamed each other for the violence.

(With PTI inputs)