Jammu and Kashmir police on Wednesday resorted to lathi-charge and detained dozens to quell protests against the government’s decision to engage a blacklisted company to conduct recruitment exams for government jobs.

The protests are a new worry for the government, which is battling a credibility crisis after a number of recruitment lists were discarded over allegations of fraud.

The allegations have dented the Centre’s claim that the scrapping of the state’s special status would rid it of “corrupt” politicians and bring in a clean and transparent administration.

Hundreds of the youths staged protests in Jammu and Srinagar simultaneously against the government’s decision to engage Mumbai-based Aptech for conducting recruitments in government departments. The agency has been blacklisted by several states.

The protesters took to the streets after the government paid no heed to their calls for cancelling the firm’s contract that was awarded last year. The police chased protesters and used batons in Jammu after they refused to disperse. Dozens were detained and taken away in police buses. The protest in Srinagar was peaceful.

A group of “engineers” staged a symbolic protest selling peanuts on a cart, regretting they might end up doing that in the wake of a bleak job market in the Union Territory.

Last year, lieutenant governor Manoj Sinha’s administration cancelled the merit list of 1,200 sub-inspectors, 1,300 junior engineers and 1,000 financial account assistants and ordered a CBI investigation, bowing to massive protests over allegations of large-scale corruption, including paper leak, in recruitment exams.

The Jammu and Kashmir Service Selection Board(JKSSB), the government’s main recruitment arm, is facing multiple investigations by the CBI following allegations of malpractices in recruitment exams.

The CBI has arrested over a dozen people, including a commandant of the Border Security Force, for their alleged involvement in sub-inspector recruitments. The CBI investigations claim police sub-inspector posts were sold for Rs 20-30 lakh each. The government later handed over the contract to M/S Aptech Limited, triggering protests and prompting aspirants to knock on the door of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh High Court.