Road blocks, tyre burns in Patna in support of bandh due to railway recruitment examination

|HT|

Protesters on Friday blocked roads and burned tyres in Patna in support of a bandh called by student-backed groups and political parties over alleged discrepancies in railway recruitment examinations. Several students’ organisations, including the Left-affiliated All India Students Association (AISA), have joined the bandh call to protest against the alleged irregularities in the Railway Recruitment Board's Non-Technical Popular Categories (RRB-NTPC) exam 2021.

Amid reports of vandalism during the ongoing protests that began earlier this week, at least four persons have been arrested for vandalism, while several others, including teachers of prominent coaching institutes, have been booked for inciting and indulging in violence.

Meanwhile, the grand alliance of Opposition parties in the state have expressed their support to the student-led bandh call, while several constituents of the ruling Nitish Kumar-headed NDA government have urged the authorities to withdraw all complaints against the protesters.

The agitators, mostly railway job aspirants, allegedly torched four empty coaches of a stationary train in Gaya and blocked rail traffic between Gaya and Jehanabad on Wednesday. Many of them were also involved in stopped trains like Rajendra Nagar-New Delhi Tejas Rajdhani express, the Sampoorna Kranti express, South Bihar Expres, and Mumbai-bound Lokmanya Tilak Terminus Express. Protests were also held in Patna, Bhagalpur and Sasaram, Gaya, Bhojpur, Buxar, Muzaffarput and Samstipur distrcits, for nearly five hours on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The Railways ministry has formed a committee which will examine grievances of protesting aspirants. This came a day after the ministry issued a public notice on January 25, 2022 stating that ‘Railway job aspirants who have indulged in vandalism/unlawful activities may face lifetime debarment’ from government jobs.

(Except for the headline and the pictorial description, this story has not been edited by THE DEN staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)