Jaipur, June 9: Gujjar leaders agreed to call off tomorrow’s Bharat bandh and hold further rounds of talks during preliminary negotiations with the government today.

In the first sign that an end to the deadlock over the community’s 18-day agitation for ST status could be in sight, the leaders placed a set of demands before the two ministers who had travelled for the negotiations to Bayana.

The demands include jobs for the kin of those killed in the police firing along with a compensation of Rs 10 lakh, immediate restoration of water and electricity lines to Gujjar settlements and a halt to raids on Gujjar villages.

Agitation spearhead K.S. Bainsla dubbed the talks “a good beginning”, telling reporters in Karwadi-Pilupura, the agitation’s epicentre, late this evening that those arrested, including women and the injured, would be freed.

Mines minister Laxmi Narayan Dave and irrigation minister Sanwar Lal Jat said after the four-hour talks the Gujjar leaders had agreed to go to Jaipur for future parleys.

There was no softening in the demand for a letter to the Centre recommending ST status but the start of talks itself is being seen as a sign of a future breakthrough.

Bharatpur divisional commissioner Niranjan Arya and special envoy S.N. Thanvi were present during the talks with 37 Gujjar leaders, down from the 45 initially proposed.

The venue for today’s negotiations was a government school in Bayana, turned into a fortress packed with army, paramilitary and state police personnel.

Sources said the two ministers had been asked not give away anything in the early round. Chief minister Vasundhara Raje, BJP state president Om Prakash Mathur and BJP spokesman Prakash Javdekar kept a close watch.

The leaders briefed Bainsla on the talks later in the evening. The retired colonel, who had yesterday given a written consent to hold the final rounds in Jaipur, had earlier said he would travel to the state capital only if the preliminary round offered an indication of the state’s willingness to send the letter recommending the ST status.