Agnipath row: Protestors block railway tracks in Bengal, services hit

Train services on the Sealdah-Bangaon route in West Bengal's North 24 Parganas district were disrupted for a brief period on Friday morning as a group of students held a demonstration on railway tracks protesting against the Centre's newly introduced 'Agnipath' scheme for recruitment in defence services, officials said. Around 50-60 students blocked the tracks at Thakurnagar station from 7.50 am to 9.15 am, an Eastern Railway official said, adding that trains services now are normal. The protestors held a demonstration against the Centre's 'Agnipath' scheme at the station for more than an hour, said a senior officer of Giaghata Police Station.

They also made an attempt to march towards the residence of BJP MP and Union Minister of State for Shipping Shantanu Thakur, he said. The government on Tuesday unveiled a ''transformative'' scheme-- 'Agnipath'-- for the recruitment of soldiers in the Army, Navy and the Air Force largely on a four-year short-term contractual basis, in a major overhaul of the decades-old selection process to bring in fitter and younger troops to deal with future security challenges facing the nation.