As the railway job aspirants on Tuesday, continued their protests for the second consecutive day in different parts of Bihar over alleged erroneous results of the Railway Recruitment Board’s Non-Technical Popular Categories Exam, the agitating students and police fought a pitched battle in Patna’s Bhikhna Pahadi area.
Police fired teargas shells and used water cannons against agitators, who pelted stones on the cops. The protests became violent at several locations in Nalanda, Nawada, Buxar, Ara, Muzaffarpur, Sitamarhi and Motihari, resulting in the cancellation or diversion of several trains.
The agitation affected several sections of the East Central Railway (ECR) zone and hindered the running of over 25 trains causing inconvenience to passengers, PTI reported.
Candidates opposed the Railways decision to hold the exams in two stages, claiming the second stage for final selection was equivalent to “cheating” for those who appeared and cleared the first stage of the RRB-NTPC for computer-based test (CBT) which was released on January 15, 2021.
The RRB-NTPC exams were held in seven phases between December 28, 2020 and July 31, 2021 to fill thousands of vacancies.
Amid rising protests, the Ministry of Railways has warned the agitating students of being ‘Debarred for Life’ from obtaining a Railway job.
“Videos of such activities will be examined with the help of specialized agencies and candidates/aspirants found indulged in unlawful activities will be liable for police action as well as lifetime debarment from obtaining a railway job,” said the statement on Tuesday.
Accusing the officials of playing with the future of the students, the agitators claimed that there was only one examination mentioned in the RRB notification issued in 2019.
This issue was highlighted when the results were declared on January 15, this year. Later the Railways Ministry issued a clarification stating that second stage exam was clearly mentioned in the notification.
