The firestorm of protests against the Agnipath defence recruitment scheme continued for the third consecutive day on Friday, taking several north Indian states in its sweep and spreading further afield to West Bengal, forcing the cancellation of over 200 trains and impacting the operations of 316 other trains.
The situation in Bihar, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh turned grim as protesters ran amok, damaging public property and torching trains at several places. But the Centre appeared determined to push it through with IAF chief Air Marshal V R Chaudhari setting the timeline for its rollout in his force — from next Friday, June 24.
Coaches of seven trains have so far been set ablaze by protesters, officials said, adding that coaches of three other running trains in the ECR and one empty rake in Kulharia, in the same zone, were damaged.
Protesters’ fury raged across at least 12 districts of Bihar where, besides setting two coaches of the Jammu Tawi Express on fire in Samastipur district, the enraged youth attacked a BJP office in Lakhisarai district. Another train — the Islampur-Hatia Express — was torched at Nalanda. The house of Bihar’s Deputy Chief Minister Renu Devi was attacked in Bettiah.
In UP, besides setting trains on fire and vandalising them in Ballia, protesters also damaged buses, forcing the police to beat back angry crowds and firing teargas shells before taking 100 youth into custody. Firozabad, Amethi, Varanasi, Unnao and Deoria were the other districts from where incidents of violence were reported.
Many trains from TN cancelled
In the wake of protests against the Agnipath scheme turning violent in Secunderabad, several train services from Chennai and other places to Secunderabad and Patna got disrupted on Friday.