Hundreds of Indian Army aspirants in Gurugram's Bilaspur area jammed both sides of the Delhi-Jaipur Expressway on Thursday morning. The traffic congestion on the Expressway stretched over several kilometres. Police said that National Highway-48 was blocked by local people at Bilaspur Chowk at around 10 A.M. on Wednesday, in protest against the ‘Agnipath’ scheme announced by the Government of India for recruitment in the military. It was only after the people were persuaded by the police officers and district administration officials to end their protest that National Highway-48 was cleared and there was smooth traffic flow after 4 PM. “The situation was immediately handled by the Gurugram Police by diverting the traffic to alternate routes. An adequate number of police/traffic officials were deployed, due to which no untoward incident took place during this protest,” said a senior police officer.
The Haryana Government, meanwhile, has temporarily suspended mobile internet, dongle and SMS services in Palwal for the next 24 hours. This order is, however, not applicable to banking services, mobile recharge, and voice calls, a statement from the Haryana Home Department read.
“The Government should roll back the four-year plan. This new scheme will hamper the interest of the Army aspirants to join the Defence forces to serve the nation,” a protester said. The protesters laid a virtual siege to bus stands and roads, crippling traffic on the Gurugram-Jaipur highway and held a protest at Bilaspur Chowk.
“Our traffic officials are on the job and ensuring that there is no major congestion. Diversions have been made as and where required,” Deputy Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Ravinder Singh Tomar said. Besides Palwal, protests were reported in other parts of Haryana earlier in the day against the new recruitment scheme. Police resorted to baton-charge in Rewari after armed forces aspirants gathered outside the bus stand in the region, causing disruption to transport services for an hour. Later, protestors also vandalised traffic signals, which compelled cops to baton-charge them.