Police use force to quell protest by unemployed teachers
BATHINDA: Police used force to quell a protest by unemployed teachers here on Sunday.
The Special Trainer Resources ( STR) Union protested saying the administration arrange their meeting with chief minister Parkash Singh Badal. The police allegedly dragged and cane-charged the protesting teachers.
The union members started gathering at Rose Garden, where they were cordoned off by a police party and were detained later. A scuffle was witnessed when the police tried to push the teachers on to a bus.
Meanwhile, another group of the union started a dharna at Fuji Chowk. They raised slogans against the state government and demanded that the teachers detained from the Rose Garden be freed.
However, the police did not allow them to block the traffic for long. Police had to use the force to foil the attempt of the protesters who demanded that the administration fix their meeting with the chief minister.
Unemployed teachers, majority of them women, tried to hold their ground, but did not last long in front of a large police force.
Interestingly, any protest in the town without the permission of the administration is banned.
STR teachers were recruited by the state government as part of a central scheme to educate illiterate children who had remained out of the education system for some reasons.
Davinder Singh, state presi- dent, STR Union, said, “There are around 1,800 STR teachers in the state. We are recruited for a year. Most of us have been working for the past four years. This year, the state government refused to recruit us. We want to meet the chief minister on the issue again as he did not pay attention to our demand during the last meeting on April 24.”
He said, “STR teachers have played an important role in bringing the poor illiterate children back into the mainstream. We are doing good for society at a meagre pay of Rs 3,500 per month. Now the government has made us unemployed. Where should we go? If they cannot give jobs to lakhs of unemployed youth, at least they should not make the youth work- ing on lower wages unemployed.”
He claimed that the police detained around 500 STR teachers from various parts of the town and they were under detention till the filing of this report.