Police in northern India fired shots in the air to push back stone-throwing crowds as protests widened against a new military recruitment system.
Authorities also shut off mobile internet in at least one district to forestall further chaos.
The Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government this week announced an ‘overhaul’ of recruitment for India’s 1.38 million-strong armed forces, looking to bring down the average age of personnel and reduce pension expenditure.
But potential recruits, military veterans, opposition leaders and even some members of Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have raised reservations over the revamped process.
The director general of police in the eastern state of Bihar, Sanjay Singh said, “protests broke out in about a dozen locations,with roads and railway tracks obstructed.”
“The protesters set fire to a train bogie coach in one place, meanwhile, they have ransacked one railway station.” Singh said,
The new system, called Agnipath or “path of fire” in Hindi, will bring in men and women between the ages of 17 and a half and 21 for a four-year tenure, with only a quarter retained for longer periods.
Previously, soldiers have been recruited by the army, navy and air force separately and typically enter service for up to 17 years for the lowest ranks.
The shorter tenure has caused concern among potential recruits.
“Where will we go after working for only four years?” one young man, surrounded by fellow protesters in Bihar’s Jehanabad district, told ANI. “We will be homeless after four years of service. So we have jammed the roads.”
Smoke billowed from burning tyres at a crossroads in Jehanabad where protesters shouted slogans and performed push-ups to emphasise their fitness for service.
Bihar and neighbouring Uttar Pradesh saw protests over the recruitment process for railway jobs in January this year, underlining India’s persistent unemployment problem.
Varun Gandhi, a BJP lawmaker from Uttar Pradesh, in a letter to India’s defence minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday said that 75% of those recruited under the scheme would become unemployed after four years of service.
“Every year, this number will increase,” Gandhi said, according to a copy of the letter posted by him on social media.
Reuters / Modinat Osanyinpeju
