Protests against military recruitment system

LUCKNOW, India - Police in northern India fired shots in the air on Thursday to push back stone-throwing crowds and authorities shut off mobile internet in at least one district to forestall further chaos, as protests widened against a new military recruitment system.

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 Mr Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have raised reservations over the revamped process.

In northern Haryana state’s Palwal district, some 50 km (31 miles) south of the capital New Delhi, crowds hurled stones at a government official’s house and police protecting the building fired shots to keep the mob at bay, according to video footage from Reuters partner ANI.”Yes, we have fired a few shots to control the crowd,” a local police official said, declining to be named.

There was no immediate information on casualties.

Mobile internet was temporarily suspended in Palwal district for the next 24 hours, Haryana’s information department said.

Protesters in eastern India’s Bihar state set a BJP office on fire in Nawada city, attacked railways statement.

The new recruitment system, called Agnipath or “path of fire” in Hindi, will bring in men and women between the ages of 17-anda-half and 21 for a four-year tenure at nonofficer ranks, with only a quarter retained for longer periods.