Protests by rural Jat caste calling for greater access to government jobs turns violent, destroying water infrastructure in Haryana state and killing 12 people

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Delhi faces a water crisis after caste protests ended in rioting and arson on Sunday that shut down a key supply and killed 12 people.

Thousands of troops with shoot-on-sight orders were deployed on Saturday in Haryana state after week-long protests turned violent, with rioters setting fire to homes and railway stations and blocking highways.

The Indian capital’s water supplies were hit after media reports said mobs forced the closure of a canal in Haryana that takes water to the capital’s treatment plants.

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Delhi’s chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal, announced water rationing throughout the city, and said all schools would be closed on Monday to conserve supplies. New Delhi gets about 60% of its water from the neighbouring state.

“Water to be equally rationed amongst all. Pl save water. Schools closed tomo,” Kejriwal said on Twitter.

At least 12 people have been killed and about 150 injured in the state since Friday, up from an earlier toll of 10, Haryana additional chief secretary P.K Das said.

One person was killed amid gunfire on Sunday and another died in a clash between two protesting groups, he said, without giving details.

The Jat rural caste is leading the protests, demanding quotas be set for Jats for highly sought-after government jobs and for university places. Caste members say they are struggling to find places despite India’s strong economic growth.

Talks were held in Delhi between Jat leaders, national home minister, Rajnath Singh, and the Haryana government run by the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP).

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Demonstrators from the Jat community sit on top of a school bus as they block the Delhi-Haryana national highway on Saturday. Photograph: Adnan Abidi/Reuters

Haryana BJP leader Anil Jain said the state government had now agreed to the community’s demands. “We have decided in the meeting that Jats will be given reservation through a law in the next assembly session,” Jain said after the talks.

Jat leader Jaipal Singh Sangwan said they would decide on Monday whether to call off the protests.

India reserves places for lower castes to try to bring victims of the country’s worst discrimination into the mainstream. But the policy causes resentment among other communities, who say it freezes them out.

Shops were again torched on Sunday and protesters carrying weapons rampaged in the streets despite the extra troops, many of whom were sent into the state to try to quell the violence.

Police officer Hari Om said in Kalanaur in Haryana’s Rohtak district, the epicentre of the violence: “A mob attacked the police post in Kalanaur town and set it on fire. Twenty shops adjacent to the post and a school were also gutted.”

“The clashes are ongoing and we had to use firearms to break up the protesters.”

An AFP photographer said he saw mobs, some armed with swords and sickles, running through the streets in Rohtak and trying to stop the media taking pictures.

Earlier he saw at least a dozen gutted buildings including a school in the town of Sampla five kilometres (three miles) from Rohtak city.

Protesters maintained blockades of roads into Haryana, television footage showed. Hundreds armed with sticks halted vehicles along one key route which was also blocked with fallen trees.

One of India’s largest carmakers, Maruti Suzuki, suspended operations at its two Haryana plants after the protests disrupted supplies of components, a spokesman said.

Jats are the single largest community in Haryana, with nearly eight million members, and are traditionally a farming community. They have been angered by comments in recent weeks by a BJP leader who opposed reservations for them.

Hundreds of trains in the state have been cancelled or diverted since Friday, an official said. “Ten small and big railway stations have been burnt. The mobs set fire to rail engines and bogies,” railways spokesman Neeraj Sharma said.

The latest protests echo caste violence that swept the western state of Gujarat in August 2015, leaving several dead.

That state saw weeks of protests by the Patidar or Patel caste, who demanded the same treatment afforded to lower castes.

Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report

