One shot dead as youth fury over Agnipath singes nation
Train stations, highways turn battleground in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Telangana
A man was shot dead in police firing in Telangana’s Secunderabad, trains went up in flames, and public and private vehicles were attacked, as railway stations and highways turned into a battleground in many states on Friday amid burgeoning protests against Agnipath, the contentious defence recruitment scheme.
Assurances by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Home Minister Amit Shah and the Army chief failed to cut ice with hordes of angry youth, carrying bamboo sticks and stones, storming railway premises across cities and small towns and laying siege to highways, creating a security scare.
Over 300 trains have been affected and more than 200 cancelled so far due to the protests, the Railways said, reflecting the enormity of the agitation.
Coaches of seven trains have so far been set ablaze by protesters, officials said, adding carriages of three running trains in the East Central Railway (ECR), headquartered in Bihar’s Hajipur, and one empty rake in Kulharia were damaged by protestors.
One coach of a train was also damaged in the washing line at Uttar Pradesh’s Ballia. So far, 64 trains were short terminated in ECR. As the depredations against the scheme continued for the third day across large parts of India, from Uttar Pradesh to Telangana and Bihar to Madhya Pradesh, Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah and Army chief Gen Manoj Pande tried to assuage the concerns of the agitators with little success.
The Army chief said the decision to raise the upper age limit to 23 from 21 will provide an opportunity to youths preparing to join the force but couldn’t in the last two years.
Union minister and former Army chief General V K Singh (retd) on Friday accused the opposition parties of creating a controversy over the Centre’s Agnipath scheme for short-term recruitment in the defence forces by “provoking” people..
Since the Opposition has nothing else to do, it is stoking a controversy over the scheme even before its implementation has started, he alleged.
Speaking to reporters at the Nagpur airport over the violent protests and opposition to the new recruitment scheme, he said, “There is no controversy in the scheme, but a controversy is being created by the opposition, which has nothing else to do. They are being surrounded by the ED...”
“People are being told wrong things and being provoked. Where is the controversy when the scheme is yet to get started?” he added.
The minister said the Army has never been a large-scale provider of jobs.