NEW DELHI: Police Friday burst tear gas shells at two places in the capital to disperse students protesting against the government’s Job reservation policy.

The students who had planned to surround Parliament house were thwarted at various intersections by police, which was deployed in large numbers in the capital.

Barely 500 meters from the Parliament house in the city center of the high security area housing the parliament and federal government offices, police lobbed a few rounds of tear gas shells to prevent students from breaking through the cordon.

Earlier, 10 rounds of teargas shells were fired to disperse slogan-shouting students near a college in south Delhi.

The anit-reserveration stir spreading all over the country has led to three deaths. Anti-reservationists are protesting against the federal government’s increasing by 27 per cent all government jobs for backward classes. Till now 22.5 per cent reservation was in force for schedule castes, tribes and other backward classes. With the latest hike, the total job reservation goes up to 49:5 per cent.

‘Traffic was thrown out of gear in several places all over the capital as the agitating students continued to block road for the fifth day Friday. Irate students on Wednesday continued their stir for the 20th day against the government’s policy of additional 27 percent job reservation, for the backward communities by boycotting classes, demonstrating and disrupting traffic and decried that it was a policy “appeasement of the vote banks.”

In the capital, the police stretched themselves to keep order and clear the city’s vital arteries of hurdles and blockades set up by students on the seventh day on Wednesday of their protest at major intersections.

Colleges affiliated to the Delhi University, reported low attendance as students boycotted classes and took to the residential areas and office and business districts,

Police said the students blocked traffic during the morning hours on all major intersections of the main arterial ring road, including the vital Indraprastha and Nizamuddin bridges across the river Yamuna, connecting east Delhi to the central parts of the city.

In the Delhi university main campus in North Delhi the newly named Kranti Chowk (revolution square) wore a deserted look as the students have put road blockades to bar entry of vehicles.

In the afternoon the demonstrators split into smaller groups and struck at the central city the busy Connaught place, Janpath and several other places, police said. In Amritsar students of the government dental colleges boycotted classes and marched in a procession and blocked traffic on the Amritsar Pathankot highway for some time.

At a rally held in the medical college campus the leaders said their agitation was against the additional reservation and they did not oppose constitutional reservation of 22.5 percent for scheduled class and scheduled tribe candidates.

A writ petition was filed in the Delhi high court on Wednesday by a Delhi based voluntary social organisation challenging the recommendations of the mandal commission report reserving 27 percent jobs for backward classes is likely to come up for hearing.

It sought quashing of the Mandal commission’s recommendations of additional jon reservation as it was violate of the constitutional guarantee of equality.

Article extracted from this publication >> August 31, 1990