Police in northern India have fired shots in the air to push back stone-throwing crowds, and authorities shut off mobile internet in at least one district to prevent further chaos, as protests widened against a new military recruitment system.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government this week announced an overhaul of recruitment for India's 1.38 million-strong armed forces, looking to bring down the average age of personnel and reduce pension expenditure.
But potential recruits, military veterans, opposition leaders and even some members of Mr Modi's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have raised reservations over the revamped process.
In northern Haryana state's Palwal district, some 50 kilometres south of the capital New Delhi, crowds hurled stones at a government official's house and police protecting the building fired shots to keep the mob at bay, according to video footage from Reuters partner ANI.
There was no immediate information on casualties.
Mobile internet was temporarily suspended in Palwal district for the next 24 hours, Haryana's information department said.
Protesters in eastern India's Bihar state set a BJP office on fire in Nawada city, attacked railway infrastructure and blocked roads, as demonstrations spread across several parts of the country, police officials said.
Protesters also attacked railway property across Bihar, settling alight coaches in at least two locations, damaging train tracks and vandalising a station, according to officials and a railways statement.
Outrage over 'path of fire'
The new recruitment system, called Agnipath or "path of fire" in Hindi, will bring in men and women between the ages of 17-and-a-half and 21 for a four-year tenure at non-officer ranks, with only a quarter retained for longer periods.
Previously, soldiers have been recruited by the army, navy and air force separately and typically enter service for up to 17 years for the lowest ranks.
The shorter tenure has caused concern among potential recruits.
"Where will we go after working for only four years?" one young man, surrounded by fellow protesters in Bihar's Jehanabad district, told ANI.
Former Indian army Colonel Ajai Shukla, now a defence analyst and journalist, told the ABC people were on the streets because of "a very fundamental fear" that the government was cutting jobs instead of creating new ones.
"They don't believe that at the end of the four years of military service, proposed under the new policy as per the new strategy, the government would … be able to offer them jobs," he said.
"Unemployment has been kicked down the road by four years and the people are upset about it."
There has also been a huge reaction because military service has been traditionally regarded in India as a stable, well-paid and well-respected job.
"The reason for the government pushing through this unpopular policy is that current spending distribution … is heavily biased towards manpower salaries and pensions," Shukla said.
"There isn't enough money left for equipment modernisation and increasing the firepower of the army by the induction of more weaponry.
"So now they have [made] manpower a little cheaper, by essentially cutting out pensions for these people who will be recruited under the new scheme."
Smoke billowed from burning tyres at a crossroads in Jehanabad, where protesters shouted slogans and performed push-ups to emphasise their fitness for service.
Bihar and neighbouring Uttar Pradesh saw protests over the recruitment process for railway jobs in January this year, underlining India's persistent unemployment problem.
Varun Gandhi, a BJP politician from Uttar Pradesh, in a letter to India's Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said 75 per cent of those recruited under the scheme would become unemployed after four years of service.
"Every year, this number will increase," Mr Gandhi said, according to a copy of the letter posted by him on social media.
Wires/ABC
