The violence began on Friday when protesters belonging to the Gujjar caste lynched a policeman in Bharatpur district in Rajasthan state, G.C. Kataria, the state's home minister, told reporters. Police shot at protesters as they tried to damage railway lines and government property, he said. At least 15 were killed. On Saturday, the army was called in to help calm the violence as another 15 people were killed when police shot at a mob protesters trying to torch a police station in Sikandra. Thousands of protesters were blocking a rail route between Delhi and Mumbai, police said. Highways have also been blocked, and state authorities have canceled many buses. Gujjars are already considered among the low born in India's complex caste hierarchy. They want to be thought of as even lower – a so-called scheduled tribe – so they can qualify for the nearly half of all government jobs and state college seats reserved solely for the lowest castes. But a state government committee did not agree, and announced instead it would spend 2.82 billion rupees ($67 million) improving schools, clinics, roads and other infrastructure in Gujjar-dominated areas. The protesters do not want the money. “We do not accept the economic package,” K.S. Bainsla, the head of the main Gujjar protest organization, told reporters. He said the state government must write to New Delhi recommending Gujjars be recategorized. “We'll not accept anything less.”
