The army conducted a flag march on Thursday to signal that troops are on stand-by to maintain law and order.
Highlights
- Jat community warns new round of demonstrations demanding reservation
- Government says it will not be held hostage by Jats' deadline
- Flag march in Rohtak to signal army is on stand-by
"There can be no repeat of last time", Prime Minister Narendra Modi has warned Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Haryana Chief Minister ML Khattar as the Jat community warned a new round of aggressive demonstrations demanding a quota of government jobs and places in state-run colleges.
Here are the 10 latest developments in this story:
30 people were killed three weeks ago as the Jats clashed with the police and other communities, and resorted to arson in parts of Haryana. A major water canal was seized and damaged by protestors, leaving Delhi without water. All vital assets must be carefully protected and law and order maintained, the PM said to top officials on Thursday.
Leaders of the large, powerful and traditionally affluent Jat community had told the Haryana government it had till Thursday to declare how it will include them in the group of other backward castes or OBCs.
The government led by Chief Minister Khattar of the BJP says it will not be held hostage to the midnight deadline, but that it remains committed to allocating reserved jobs and college places to the Jats and four other communities in Haryana.
Top Jat leaders will meet with government representatives today in Chandigarh.
A ban on large groups gathering in the volatile area of Jind is now in effect. Colleges are closed there for the rest of this week.
In Rohtak, the epicenter of last month's violence, officials say they may disrupt phone and internet services. The army conducted a flag march on Thursday to signal that troops are on stand-by to maintain law and order.
The quandary for the government is how to introduce reservation for the Jats without being over-ruled by courts. Last year, the Supreme Court ruled that Jats are not a backward community entitled to benefit from reservation. Haryana has already hit the 50 percent cap on quotas allowed by the Supreme Court for Other Backward Classes (OBC) and Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
The government says that it will not include Jats in the 27 percent quota for OBCs, which would upset those communities whose benefits would be diluted, but will include the Jats and four other castes in a 10 per cent quota in a category for Special Backward Castes.
The BJP government has dropped a plan to introduce that proposal, because the previous Congress government tried a similar move, which was rejected by the Punjab and Haryana High Court last year, because it bust the 50 percent limit for reservation.
Jats make up nearly a third of the voters in Haryana and have delivered the bulk of the state's Chief Ministers.
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