Ten people have died in caste protests which triggered widespread arson and looting in a north Indian state, police said Sunday, as New Delhi faced a water crisis after mobs shut down a key supply.
Thousands of troops with shoot-on-sight orders were deployed on Saturday in Haryana state, a day after week-long protests turned violent with rioters setting fire to homes and railway stations and blocking highways.
Ten people have been killed and about 150 injured in the state since Friday when officers fired on rioters, Haryana police chief Yash Pal Singal told a press conference, updating earlier estimates of five dead.
Television images showed mobs wielding sticks rampaging through the streets in Haryana state, setting fire to a local government minister’s house and railway stations, damaging train tracks and blocking two key highways.
"There were clashes during the night across the district. Over a dozen buildings were set on fire by protesters, with incidents of looting of shops and ATMs at two places," an officer said on condition of anonymity.
A local police officer in Jhajjar, whose district borders that of Rohtak, earlier told AFP that five people were killed on Saturday "when the army opened fire on a mob".
A week-long protest by members of the state’s dominant Jat caste, who are demanding quotas for government jobs and in education, turned violent on Friday as police fired on protesters.
India sets aside a proportion of jobs and educational places to people from so-called lower and backward castes — measures intended to bring victims of the worst discrimination into the mainstream.
The Jats, a comparatively affluent group, want the same special allowances to put them on an equal footing with lower castes.
The Jats make up 29 per cent of Haryana’s population and are traditionally a farming community. The latest protests echo caste violence that swept the western state of Gujarat in August last year, leaving several dead.
That state saw weeks of protests by the privileged Patidar or Patel caste, who demanded the same treatment afforded to lower castes.But the policy of “reservation” causes resentment among other communities who say it freezes them out.
Smaller protests broke out in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh state, which also borders Delhi, late on Saturday, as hundreds of Jat demonstrators blocked a main highway.India has deployed thousands of troops to quell protests that have hit water supplies to Delhi, forced factories to close and killed 10 people.Rioting and looting in Haryana, north India, by Jats, a rural caste, is symptomatic of increasingly fierce competition for government jobs and education in India, whose growing population is set to overtake China’s within a decade.
The federal government deployed 4,000 troops and 5,000 paramilitaries on Sunday and ordered an end to the protests by the evening. The home minister, Rajnath Singh, met Jat leaders and offered to meet their demands.
In Bahadurgarh, on the road west from Delhi, approximately 2,000 protesters occupied a highway intersection and stopped truck traffic. Shops in the town were closed.
“We are here to die,” said Rajendra Ahlavat, a 59-year-old farmer and protest leader. “We will keep going until the government bows to our pressure. There is no way we will take back our demands.“
TV reports from Jhajjar, further west, showed troops fanning out on the streets against a backdrop of burning and damaged buildings – evidence of the fury of Jats who make up a quarter of Haryana’s population and number more than 80 million people.The protesters have damaged equipment that brings water from the Munak canal in Haryana state to New Delhi, depleting the capital’s water supply. New Delhi gets about 60% of its water from the neighbouring state.
Arvind Kejriwal, Delhi’s chief minister, announced on Sunday that schools in the capital would be closed on Monday due to the water shortage. He also ordered the rationing of water to people’s homes to ensure that hospitals and emergency services have a sufficient supply.
At least 10 people have been killed in firing on protesters by Indian security forces since the weeklong protests turned violent on Friday, Yashpal Singhal, the state’s top police officer, told reporters on Sunday. Another 150 protesters have been injured in clashes in various parts of Haryana.
Haryana’s police chief said the death toll had risen to 10 and 150 more had been injured. “We are trying to identify the conspirators and take action,”Singal told a televised news conference.
An official from Singh’s nationalist party – which also rules Haryana – said after talks at his residence that it would bring a bill in the state assembly to grant “reservation”, or a guaranteed quota of government jobs, to Jats.
Tags:
International