Over one lakh youths protested in Dehradun on Thursday after Uttarakhand’s BJP government used force on some women job-seekers on a dharna against frequent question paper leaks.

Later in the afternoon, police resorted to lathi-charge again on the youths who had converged on the state capital. The protesters claimed a dozen of them suffered head and other injuries.

The police claimed that they used mild force only to maintain law and order. Several thousand youths were arrested.

The police forcibly packed them into buses and vans and took them to Sudhowala jail, 12km from the city.

Daleep Singh, senior superintendent of police of Dehradun, said: “The youths were protesting peacefully but some anti-social elements attacked the police and started damaging vehicles and other properties. We gave them 15 minutes’ time to disperse and then started taking them to jail.”

Suresh Singh, spokesperson of the Uttarakhand Berojgar Sangh, said: “While the police are forcibly taking us to jail, many of the protesters are still near Gandhi Park and will try to go there to continue the dharna.”

The protesters chanted anti-BJP and anti-government slogans and declared they wouldn’t leave until a CBI probe was ordered.

Job-seekers in the hill state have been demanding a CBI probe under the supervision of a high court judge into the paper leaks that have blighted several job-related examinations.

The immediate trigger of the flare-up, which brought life to a standstill in Dehradun on Thursday for eight hours, was an alleged police lathicharge on women job-seekers on a dharna at Gandhi Park late on Wednesday night.

“The police quietly came when we were sleeping at the dharna venue and lathicharged us. They dragged us by our hair and declared that they would shoot us if we continued to raise our voice against the Pushkar Singh Dhami government. They dragged many of us for about 100 metres,” Sunanda Pandey, a job-seeker, told reporters at Gandhi Park on Thursday.

“We don’t know who informed the youths across Uttarakhand about the attack, but they started reaching here at 8am. This shows that the youths have awakened and understood the true colour of this government, which is soft against those involved in paper leaks. The government is helping BJP and RSS cadres to get jobs,” Pandey said.

“As many as 33 people — all connected to the BJP and the RSS — were caught in the first week of January with question papers of the patwari (revenue sub-inspector) recruitment examination even before it was to be held on January 8. The examination was postponed and some of them were arrested, but later released. They all have been allowed to appear in the examination rescheduled for February 12,” she said.

The Dhami government has ordered a probe by a special task force of the police into the alleged paper leak. Jay Kumar, who reached the state capital on Thursday from Rudraprayag, said: “Such abuse of power had never been seen before in a democratic country. Those who are making a simple request to the government to ensure that examinations are conducted in a fair manner are brutalised and intimidated. The youths are peace-loving but they have been provoked to resort to protests.”

“We will be on an indefinite satyagraha here till a CBI probe is ordered into all the incidents of paper leak,” Kumar said.