New Delhi — A violent protest by an Indian caste group called the Gujjars, demanding a change of constitutional status that would give it access to more university seats and jobs, claimed two more victims in the northwestern Indian state of Rajasthan on Friday, bringing the total death toll during the eight-day-old protest to 41, The Times of India reported.

The incident — which is expected to lead to an even stronger agitation and more violence — occurred just as the Gujjars and the government had agreed on talks to resolve the issue.

Officials say the two agitators were killed on Friday when police officers fired on a mob of 7,000 people attacking them from the top of a hill. Members of the caste group, however, say the firing was unprovoked. This round of protests is the second in less than a year.

The Gujjars are a semi-nomadic ethnic group of cattle herders and farmers from Rajasthan and other northern Indian states. They are demanding that their status be changed from “other backward classes” to “scheduled tribes,” the most economically and educationally disadvantaged of India’s ethnic groups. The Gujjars, who compose 8 percent of Rajasthan’s population, say they cannot compete with other groups classified as “backward classes” from Rajasthan who have become more prosperous thanks to land reforms.

The Indian government reserves 27 percent of seats in all public higher-education institutions for “other backward classes” and 22.5 percent of university seats for “scheduled castes and tribes,” Indians once known as “Untouchables” who have suffered the most under the caste system. —Shailaja Neelakantan