New Delhi: In a second day of violent protests against a new short-lived government recruitment policy for the army, angry youths torched train coaches, blocked highways and attacked police with rocks in parts of India on Friday. , which resulted in the death of at least one person. Police officials said.
Police said the death occurred in southern India’s Secunderabad, where around 500 protesters ransacked a railway station for over an hour. Another 15 people are reported to be injured.
The protesters attacked the police with stones and the police resorted to lathi-charge and opened fire to disperse them. One protester was killed in police firing, a police officer said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters.
Television images showed people setting empty train coaches on fire and damaging property of railway officials. They burnt tires and blocked rail tracks, disrupting train services in the area for several hours. No injuries were immediately reported.
Under the new job program announced by Defense Minister Rajnath Singh this week, the armed forces can recruit 46,000 men and women in the age group of 17.5-21 this year, but only for four years. Seventy-five percent of them will compulsorily retire after four years without pension benefits.
A full-time soldier serves for more than 35 years.
The violence also affected the eastern state of Bihar where protesters torched six train coaches and damaged railway stations, including offices and electronic installations. SK Singhal, a police officer, said the protesters also blocked highways for hours.
Singhal said the protesters pelted stones at the homes of top Bharatiya Janata Party leaders Renu Devi and Sanay Jaiswal in Bettiah town of Bihar state. No one got injured.
Railroad spokesperson Virendra Kumar said that due to the massive protests, 30 trains were canceled and another 29 trains were diverted to safer routes and 30 trains with passengers stranded at different places in the state of Bihar were left. .
In the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, protesters threw stones at buses in the city of Varanasi.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, which faces national elections in 2024, is under pressure to provide jobs as India’s economy recovers from the slowdown of the pandemic. One idea behind short-term military recruitment is that those trained by the armed forces may later seek jobs in the police or private sector.
The intention of the government also seems to be to save money by avoiding the burden of pension on retirement after four years. Military analyst Rahul Bedi said in a blog post that pension payments have averaged less than a quarter of India’s total defense budget over the years, leaving limited funds to modernize the military.
With 1.4 million active personnel, India’s military is the world’s second largest and third largest spending force after China.
Army recruitment was put on hold for the last two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and thousands of candidates spent time preparing themselves to join the Army.
“Now we are being told that we will have jobs for only four years,” said one of the protesters.
Defense Minister Singh late Thursday night raised the age limit by two years as a one-time exception, noting that there had been no military recruitment for the last two years.
Retired Indian Army chief VP Malik said the dismay of the youth was understandable.
“The government and the armed forces will have to work more on their outreach to justify and convince the youth of the plan,” he said in an interview with the Times of India newspaper.