Earlier, the Indian government had announced the new recruitment policy, called Agnipath. The policy aims to hire more people in the military on four-year contracts to lower the average age of Indian armed forces and cut down on pension costs.
The government had said the armed forces aim to recruit about 46,000 people under the new policy this year, and will keep employed only 25 per cent of them at the end of their four-year terms.
Today, many potential recruits, concerned about employment opportunities after serving their four-year terms, and thousands of young men took to the streets, with protests turning violent in at least three states.
In the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, protests erupted in 14 districts, and police fired into the air to push back stone-throwing crowds, senior police official Prashant Kumar said. "The police are trying to disperse protesters by holding talks with them," Kumar told a news agency.
Meanwhile, the authorities imposed restrictions on gatherings in a satellite city of India's capital. The administration of Gurugram district said no more than four people could gather at one place in an effort to forestall demonstrations.