Protests against the Centre's 'Agnipath' recruitment scheme for the Armed forces spread from Bihar and Jharkhand to Odisha and West Bengal on Friday, with unhappy job aspirants coming out in large numbers torching and stopping trains and disrupting services across the eastern region.
Besides targeting railway properties, the protestors attacked the house of Deputy Chief Minister Renu Devi and the car of a BJP MLA in Bihar. State BJP president Sanjay Jaiswal's residence in Bettiah town was also vandalised but the leader claimed the attackers were not job aspirants.
In West Bengal, the protestors attempted to march towards the residence of BJP MP and Union minister Shantanu Thakur while a mob demonstrated in a cantonment area in Odisha.
The government announced the Agnipath scheme on Tuesday to recruit soldiers in the Army, Navy and the Air Force on a contract for four years without pension benefits. It said that the scheme will bring in fitter and younger troops to tackle future security challenges facing the nation.
However, job aspirants in the forces are not happy and they have been protesting for the last few days in several states across the country.
Bihar Deputy CM Renu Devi claimed that the large-scale violence is the handiwork of goons instigated by opposition parties.
"What else explains targeted attacks on BJP leaders? My house in Bettiah town was attacked. Window panes and a car parked inside got damaged. Thankfully, none of those inside was injured. Petrol pump owned by a brother of Sanjay Jaiswal (state party president) has also been vandalised,” she told PTI.
Jaiswal's house in Bettiah was also attacked by a mob.
Jaiswal, the local MP, claimed that he has identified many of the attackers who were "not army aspirants" and that they had come with the intention of "blowing up" the building.
The attack on BJP leaders comes a day after the party's MLA Aruna Devi was injured in a stone-pelting incident at Nawada, where the party office was also torched by the rampaging mob.
A toll plaza in Deedarganj, the outskirts of Patna, and a police jeep in Nawada were also set ablaze. Demonstrations were also held in various other parts of Bihar.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) on Friday made a fresh plea to the Narendra Modi government for an immediate review of the ‘Agnipath’ scheme, and to assure protesting youngsters that their future will not be adversely affected by the new policy.
Hundreds of aspirants for recruitment in the Armed Forces blocked the arterial Ring Road in Cuttack of Odisha and tore down hoardings in the Cantonment area of the city. The protests followed the death by suicide of a person who, it is said, cleared the physical fitness and medical tests during a recruitment drive by the Army and apprehended that it will be cancelled after the announcement of 'Agnipath'. It was, however, the railways that continued to bear the brunt of the protesters and many trains were cancelled or short terminated across the region.
The East Central Railway zone headquartered at Bihar's Hajipur, which had announced restoration of normal rail traffic from 3.30 pm on Thursday, again came out with a list of trains that had to be cancelled, short terminated or diverted.
The mob set fire to 30 coaches of two trains, one each at Lakhisarai and Samastipur stations and torched a railway engine in Bettiah.
Train services on the Sealdah-Bangaon route in West Bengal's North 24 Parganas district were disrupted for over an hour on Friday morning as a group of students held a demonstration on railway tracks.
In Jharkhand, train services on the Howrah-Mumbai route were affected for about one and a half hours after youths put up a blockade on rail tracks near Jugsalai railway crossing in Jamshedpur under South Eastern Railway on Friday morning, a railway official said.
The Durg-bound South Bihar Express and Danapur-bound Tata-Danapur Express were detained for one and a half hours at Taranagar station due to the agitation.
Later, a delegation of the protestors met the Deputy Commissioner of East Singhbhum district demanding withdrawal of the scheme.