New Delhi: Gujarat remained by and large peaceful on Thursday with incidents of sporadic violence reported from some parts of the state. The state appeared limping back to normality after two days of violence that claimed 10 lives.

The Patidar community, popularly known by their surname Patel, scored a minor victory over the state administration with the Gujarat High Court Thursday ordering a probe into the alleged police excesses while dealing with violent agitation on Tuesday.

The court order came after videos of Gujarat Police personnel going berserk, damaging government properties and brutally attacking the agitators surfaced Thursday.

Police accused of remaining silent spectators during the 2001 Gujarat Hindu-Muslim riots failed to act likewise while dealing with the agitators as the videos show policemen in helmets smashing windowpanes of cars, breaking into the Shahibaug area and going on the rampage.

The police are also accused of indulging in firing on protesters without employing other means to stop and disperse them.

Hardik Patel, the 22-year-old youth spearheading the Patidar agitation demanding inclusion of the community in the list of other backward classes (OBC), demanded Rs3.5 million (Dh194,673) as compensation to the families of those killed in the violence, while blaming police for excesses and use of violence to defame them at the behest of the political establishment in the state.

Patel upped the ante Thursday by asking farmers belonging to the Patidar community to stop supply of essential commodities such as vegetables and milk to cities in order to build further pressure on the state government.

While curfew imposed on Wednesday was lifted from most parts of the state, rail traffic remained affected as protesters uprooted railway tracks in at least eight places, forcing either cancellation or diversion of trains.

“No untoward incidents were reported from the entire Ahmedabad district today. Government and private offices, business establishments, shopping complex and shops remained open,” Ahmedabad district collector Rajkumar Beniwal said Thursday.

According to Beniwal, road traffic was normal on Thursday. “Situation is under control and peace is prevailing in the city,” Beniwal said. Army conducted flag marches in the area most affected by the violence for the second day Thursday.

It is being said that the biased attitude of the Gujarat Police has lots to do with their own social set up. Most of the police personnel at the junior levels belong to the OBC category and are opposed to inclusion of Patels into the creamy list of OBC that entitles the communities named under it to 27 per cent reservations in admission to educational institutions and government jobs.

While Hardik Patel Thursday stuck to his stand that instead of withdrawing their agitation, they would intensify it further while remaining peaceful, the agitators have now added a new twist to the controversy by saying that either the Patidar community is included on the OBC list or the state must scrap the reservation system completely.

Gujarat offers 49.5 per cent reservations. Besides 27 per cent set aside for OBCs, Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes are entitled for 15 per cent and 7.5 per cent reservations respectively.

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) finds itself trapped since either way it will face wrath of those affected when the state elects its new legislative assembly in 2017.

Demands have started surfacing within the BJP that the party must change Anandiben Patel as Gujarat chief minister for her failure to control the situation when all could see it coming.

The BJP has been trying to blame other opposition parties that they are using Hardik Patel and other members of the Patidar Amanat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) to plot the BJP’s downfall in the state.

The widespread feeling in the BJP is that the ongoing Patel agitation is being fuelled by the opposition to ensure the party’s defeat in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state Gujarat. The BJP’s defeat in Gujarat, the party feels, would be the worst publicity for Modi and ensure he does not continue as the Indian premier beyond 2019 when the next general elections get due in the country.