Amidst stray incidents of violence and protest against the launch of Agnipath scheme for recruitment in the armed forces, five fake army aspirants, affiliated to various political parties, were arrested for instigating protests, officials said on Sunday.
According to the Saharanpur police, all the five arrested accused are either members of different political parties or their office-bearers. One of the accused, Sandeep Parag, is associated with the National Students Union of India (NSUI).
The arrested accused were identified as Sandeep Parag, Pawar, Mohit Chaudhary, Saurabh Kumar and Uday. All these are residents of Saharanpur.
According to the police, all these accused were "instigating" the youth to "oppose" the Agnipath scheme, a new scheme for recruitment in the armed forces. However, the police arrested all the five accused and were making further investigations.
The Saharanpur police said that the age of these five arrested accused was more than 25 years and they were not eligible to join the armed forces under the new scheme.
The arrests were made late on Saturday night and officials said that the accused were being interrogated.
In many states of the country, there have been protests against the Centre's Agnipath scheme.
Meanwhile in Ghazipur district, protests continued for the second day on Sunday. Some youths pelted stones near Banjaripur and Ganga Bihar Colony to stop Sadbhavna Express train passing through the railway track.
The personnel of the Railway Protection Force (RPF), Government Railway Police Force (GRPF) and the local police immediately swung into action after learning of the trouble. They chased away the troublemakers and paved the way for the train to safely proceed further for the destination.
Reports said that about 50-60 youths gathered near Banjaripur village under Kotwali, raising slogans against the government and demanding withdrawal of the Agnipath scheme. As soon as the information was received, a police team, including Superintendent of Police Rambadan Singh, SP (City) Gopinath Soni, SP (Rural) Rajdhari Chaurasia reached the spot and tried to defuse the situation. Seeing the disturbance, the police took 15-20 youths into custody from the spot.
Some youths also pelted stones at a goods train to register their ire.
In Khiro police station area of Rae Bareli district also, youths protested against the Agnipath scheme by blocking the road near the Lalganj-Kanpur road mini indoor stadium on Sunday. There was a massive jam on the road for about half an hour and chaos prevailed for a long time.
The sub-divisional magistrate of Lalganj along with Inspector in-charge Khiro reached the spot and after persuading the youth, cleared the road jam.
On the other hand, in view of the protest against Agnipath, the police force remained alert at Bachhrawan, Unchahar and Lalganj and Rae Bareli railway stations. Due to the strictness of the police, no one could throw stones at the railway stations or near it.
SP Alok Priyadarshi said that with the understanding of the youth, an appeal was being made to end the protest.