Ethnic group disrupts life in India's capital

Posted 05 31 2008 4:17AM

NEW DELHI (AFP) - An ethnic group Thursday tried to bring India's capital to a halt, blocking key highways and paralysing trains in a bitter and deadly campaign for more government aid, police said.

The protests by the Gujjars, who are traditionally shepherds, are aimed at making New Delhi recognise them as a tribe, which would give them easier access to government jobs and education.

Thousands of Gujjars squatted on roads into New Delhi at the start of a day-long shutdown, a police spokesman said.

Others crowded railway tracks, preventing trains from moving as several thousand police and paramilitary personnel deployed across the capital kept an eye on protestors to prevent violence, he said.

In nearby Haryana state, police shot dead a Gujjar protester in Panipat district while another died in a stampede at a roadblock, the Press Trust of India added.

Fourteen policemen were also injured in clashes with Gujjar men in the northern state, which adjoins the Indian capital, senior Haryana police officer V. B. Singh said.

At least 41 people, including two policemen, have been killed in northern India since the agitation started in Rajasthan state seven days ago.

A home ministry advisory late Wednesday urged the state governments of Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh "to take preventive steps including intensive patrolling in vulnerable areas."