Protests by India's ethnic Gujjar community spread across northern India Thursday with demonstrations and road and rail blockades in Delhi and its outskirts and several towns in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh states, officials and news reports said, according to dpa. The shephardic Gujjar community has been holding protests since May 23 demanding to be reclassified in Rajasthan state in order to qualify for government jobs and quotas in schools. Currently classified as an Other Backward Class (OBC), the Gujjars want to be downgraded to Scheduled Tribe (ST) status to gain more quotas under India's affirmative action policy. At least 37 people have died in the violent protests in Rajasthan so far, most of them by police firing to quell mobs attacking police stations. The Gujjar protests spread to Delhi's major satellite towns of Gurgaon, Faridabad, Noida and Ghaziabad on Thursday as the community upped their protests on the first anniversary of the killing of 26 Gujjar's in police firings during similar protests in 2007. Protestors clashed with the police in Haryana state's Gurgaon district as they tried to block a main arterial road leading to South Delhi, the police said. The community held protest marches in various parts of the city. More than 45,000 police and paramilitary personnel kept vigil in the suburbs of the national capital and most of the protestors were dispersed by late afternoon. An elderly man was killed in a stampede as the police dispersed a group of demonstrators in Samlakha town in Haryana, again on a major highway leading into the capital. There were reports of clashes in Jammu and Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh states as well. Meanwhile, the protests in Rajasthan continued with public transport remaining off the roads and most private offices closed in state capital Jaipur where the community leaders gave a call for a shut down. Markets and government offices were, however open, IANS news agency reported. Attempts to block roads and close down shops and offices were reported from seven districts in the state, an official at the Jaipur police control room said. Most of India's 50 million Gujjars live in the northern states of Rajasthan, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir. The government airdropped pamphlets in Bayana in Rajasthan, about 150 kilometres west of Jaipur, which has been the epicentre of the protests that began on May 23, requesting the Gujjars to stop their protests and engage in a dialogue. Gujjar leader Kirori Singh Bainsla, a retired army colonel, has been spearheading the agitation from Bayana, where thousands of community members have gathered from adjoining villages. The Gujjar leaders have refused to talk with the state government saying they would call off their agitation only if they were assured of scheduled tribe status.
