Agnipath protest: Traffic in disarray as highway to Delhi blocked for 7 hours

GURUGRAM: Hundreds of youths protesting against the ‘Agnipath’ scheme for short-term recruitments in the Army blocked one side of the Jaipur-Delhi highway for around seven hours from Thursday morning, throwing traffic on the key corridor out of gear.
Around 9am, the protesters gathered at Bilaspur Chowk and blocked the side of NH-8 leading to Delhi. They said the government, despite promises of increasing induction in the armed forces, hadn’t conducted exams for three years and many of them had crossed the age limit for appearing in the tests. The new scheme, they said, would also render them jobless after four years.
The protesters said ‘Agnipath’ would ruin their careers. “My son, too, was an aspirant. He cleared the physical test but kept waiting for exams for three years. The government didn’t hold any exam in all these years. He is now overage and has slipped into depression. I feel sorry for these youngsters,” said a cop at the protest site in Bilaspur.
The protest was planned over WhatsApp groups. “We don’t have any union or leaders. We are aspirants in the armed forces and discussed the new scheme on WhatsApp. We decided to gather at Bilaspur Chowk. Others joined us when the message reached them through word-of-mouth,” said 20-year-old Joginder.
Police teams hit the road and diverted traffic from Bilapsur, Panchgaon and Kapriwas. As a result, Pataudi road bore the brunt and there was a long tailback of vehicles during the morning rush hour.
By afternoon, it was worse as more vehicles joined the snarl and traffic hardly moved ahead.
A team of senior administrative officials joined the police in convincing the protesters to withdraw their agitation. There were multiple interventions, and the youths finally vacated the road0 by 4pm.
After repeated dialogues failed, the cops admitted to using “mild force”. Though the main carriageways were cleared, some of the protesters assembled at the service lane.
“These kids are locals. They didn’t have a leader or union to represent their demands. Most senior officials were there since the morning itself and we listened to them patiently. But they were not agreeing to hand over a memorandum. We tried to talk to them, but they refused. At 4pm, we gave them an ultimatum. They then cleared the highway and we mobilised the traffic,” ACP (traffic) Yashwant Yadav told TOI.
It was after repeated requests that the youths selected their representatives and handed over a memorandum. They threatened to hit the streets again if the government did not agree to their demands in three weeks.
“We exercised patience and assured them of support from the administration. But then, we warned them of action and they handed over the memorandum. We’ll forward it to the government,” additional deputy commissioner Vishram Kumar Meena said.
Caught in the snarl for hours, the commuters sweated it out. Pooja Chaudhary, who was on her way to Delhi, didn’t carry a bottle of water, but couldn’t step out of the car either because the vehicles could move anytime. “I was stuck in my car without food and water on NH-48 with thousands of others,” she said.
Mohit Yadav, too, was stuck for over four hours. “There was no movement whatsoever,” he said.
Similar protests were held in Palwal, Rewari and Rohtak as well. Although the police claimed the protests were largely peaceful, there were videos purportedly showing the agitators burning vehicles in Palwal, and resorting to aggression and pelting the cops with stones in Rewari and Rohtak.