3 Die in Latest Round of Caste Strife in India

At least three people were killed and 10 wounded today when police opened fire on demonstrators protesting the Indian government’s plan to increase the number of its jobs reserved for low-caste Hindus.

Two of the dead were demonstrators and one was a police officer who died in the hospital after “hooligans fired on the police,” a police spokesman said.

Senior Policeman Ajay Chadha said his men were forced to open fire after running out of tear gas when about 80 of them were surrounded near Parliament by a 5,000-strong mob wielding heavy sticks and throwing stones.

“The crowd became totally unmanageable and we had to open fire,” he said after a rally that took place on the birthday of the late Mohandas K. Gandhi, the advocate of nonviolence who led India to independence in 1947.

Serious unrest began as people drifted away from the rally against Prime Minister Vishwanath Pratap Singh’s plan to increase government jobs reserved for lower castes, outcastes and tribal people from 22.5% to nearly half.

Also today, officials said a paramilitary patrol responded to a grenade attack in Kashmir by burning 400 houses and firing on villagers, killing at least 17 people and leaving hundreds missing.

Many victims were dragged from their homes and shot at close range, and others died in the fire that gutted the densely populated market area, witnesses said.

The incident occurred Monday in Handwara, an apple-trading town 50 miles from the northern Jammu-Kashmir state capital, Srinagar.

Phansung, a town official who uses one name, said seven of the dead were buried today. Other officials said the smoldering debris of the buildings had not been searched, and the death toll was expected to rise.

The government said the fire started after Muslim militants hurled a grenade at Border Security Force troops patrolling the town market.