The coaches of the Jammu Tawi Express train were set on fire at Mohiuddinagar station.
Mob set trains on fire in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar this morning as the protests over the new military recruitment policy, Agnipath, entered the third consecutive day today.Trains were set afire, public and police vehicles attacked in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar amid protests against the new recruitment scheme for the defence forces that has set off a firestorm.
In Uttar Pradesh, a mob entered a railway station in Ballia this morning and set a train on fire, and also damaged railway station property before the police used force to disperse them.
Another group of protesters carrying sticks argued with the police on the streets outside the railway station in the eastern UP district. Videos of the protest show young men with lathis breaking shops and benches at the railway station. "The police managed to stop the mob from large-scale damage. We will act against the men," Ballia District Magistrate Saumya Agarwal told reporters.
Two coaches of the Jammu Tawi Express train were set on fire at Mohiuddinagar station in Bihar, officials told NDTV, adding no one was hurt in the incident.
Several parts of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh have witnessed protests over the new military recruitment policy. The protest had spread to BJP-ruled Haryana and Madhya Pradesh too.
From Bihar's Ara to Haryana's Palwal, from Agra in Uttar Pradesh to Gwalior and Indore in BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh, hundreds of young aspirants for jobs in the armed forces took to streets, pouring their anger on public and private property.
Bihar bore the brunt of the violence with trains set ablaze, window panes of buses smashed and passersby, including a ruling BJP MLA, attacked with stones on Thursday, the second day of the protest against the scheme which proposes a short four-year term for soldiers in the three armed forces entailing no gratuity or pension upon retirement. The new plan aims to cut down the government's massive salary and pension bills and free up funds to buy arms.
The government unveiled Agnipath on Tuesday -- calling it a "transformative" scheme-- for the recruitment of soldiers in the Army, Navy and the Air Force, largely on a four-year short-term contractual basis.
The age limit for Agnipath recruitment has now been raised to 23 from 21 as a one-time waiver following the protests.
The government has also put out a 10-point defence of the scheme and assured recruits they will not find themselves in the lurch after completing their four years in the military.
