Jaipur/Alwar: Traffic came to a halt after several protesters swelled at the Jaipur-Delhi National Highway (NH-48) in Alwar’s Behror on Saturday morning.
The protesters also damaged a roadways bus after cops thwarted their plans to torch it. The driver, Mahesh Kumar, said nearly 30 youths stormed the bus and tried to set it on fire. After an intense confrontation with police, the highway was cleared of protesters and traffic soon resumed. Angered by the Centre’s newly announced Agnipath recruitment scheme for defence forces, the youths in large numbers began to pour onto the highway shortly after 9 AM. Many of them had covered their faces with white clothes.
The protesters shouted slogans and demanded a complete rollback and then quickly began spilling on the highway, causing traffic chaos on NH-48 that ensnared several vehicles heading to Delhi from Jaipur.
The Behror police control room began moving additional forces to the scene. Senior police officials tried to placate the protesters to move away from the highway. The protesters then tried to use different objects to shut down the highway. A police official said the protesters were asked to make way for an ambulance, but they did not agree.
The police then used “mild force” and dispersed protesters away from the highway. The vehicular traffic had resumed on the highway, but the protesters scattered into different groups.
“These youths were pushed away from the highway and spread into different parts of the city. One of the groups vandalised a bus near Neemrana. They smashed its windshields and hurled a burning tyre into it. It could have triggered a fire in the bus, but it was contained,” said the official. The Behror police then sent multiple teams to chase protesters and detained 23 of them.
DSP (Behror) Anand Kumar said that the traffic on the highway was interrupted for a brief period, “The vehicular traffic is operating seamlessly on the highway now,” he said.
The youths claimed that they felt “betrayed,” by the sudden announcement of the new scheme. The protests have been raging through different parts of Rajasthan.
In Jodhpur, police averted a fresh protest against the Agnipath scheme on Satruday. Alert police detained five students, who had assembled at Paota following a call for protest on social media. All these five students, however, were let off with a warning after a brief interrogation.
In Jaipur, some protesters smashed earthen pots at a railway station in Benar road. “There was no major vandalism, only a few pots were smashed,” said DCP (West) Richa Tomar. Members of the Youth Congress took out a major protest against Aginpath at Amar Jawan Jyoti on Saturday evening, led by minister Pratap Singh Khachariyawas.
On Friday, angry protesters vandalised a railway station in Sikar’s Sri Madhopur and attacked a bus.
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