From commotion to deserted with posters and newspapers strewn around, Karunamoyee in West Bengal’s Salt Lake has seen contrasting scenarios over the past three days.
Hundreds of protesters were holding a sit-in demonstration under for four days after police stopped their march to the state Primary Education Board headquarters on Monday.
The protesters cleared the Teachers Eligibility Test (TET) in 2014, but failed to get past the two sets of interviews they appeared for. In the wake of the large-scale recruitment corruption allegations, the agitators, including those who cleared the test in 2017, demanded direct recruitment claiming their appointments were thwarted because the council chose the corruption route and gave jobs to undeserving candidates in the first place.
Recently, a case of corruption came to light which rocked Bengal’s school education sector and have put the influential board and School Service Commission authorities as also former education minister Partha Chatterjee behind bars.
THE CLAIMS, COUNTER
Board officials claim the candidates who qualified TET in 2014 have already participated in two recruitment processes in the past eight years and some 53,000 appointments have been given to that batch.
In the latest recruitment notification dated September 29, the board has asked 2014 qualified, but not included, candidates to appear for a fresh round of interviews alongside candidates from the subsequent 2017 batch who have cleared the exam.
The call irked the agitating 2014 candidates who gave a counter-call to boycott any further interviews and demanded direct recruitment instead. Moreover, chief minister Mamata Banerjee made public assurances of filling up vacancies with qualified candidates in a phased manner once court litigations are sorted.
THURSDAY NIGHT DRAMA
The police launched an operation in the middle of the night to clear the road. The police officers of Bidhannagar Police Commissionerate started taking the 2014 job-seekers to buses and prison vans by dragging them. The protesters were crammed into three buses and taken away. The protesters were arrested step by step. They were taken from there by bus. A few protesters fell ill and were rushed to the ambulance for treatment. A large contingent of RAF and police was on the spot.
However, despite all this, the TET graduates of 2017 remained steadfast in their position. At night, the police came and spoke to them. Some were taken by bus to other places. But most of them did not agree to go anywhere at night due to security reasons. Later, more police were brought in.
First, the 2017 TET passers clearly informed the police that they will leave Karunamoyee in the morning. But finally the police removed all of them forcibly.
Around 12:30 am on Friday, when the police were forcibly removing the protesters, the leaders and activists of the opposition party present at the scene first formed a human chain. Before arresting the protesters, the police asked them to get up through the microphone. As the request was not acted upon, the police took action on the orders of the higher-ranking officer.
According to sources, a car took 18 job-seekers from Newtown police station to Sealdah station at 4:30 am, Friday. Till then around 50 job aspirants were still inside the Newtown police station. According to police sources, they did not want to go at night even though they wanted to release them.
The police personnel released the job-seekers at Newtown police station at 5am on Friday. But the location of their three leaders was unknown. Later, Arnav Ghosh, Achintya Dhara, Achintya Samant were traced to the Bidhannagar East police station where they were being interrogated.
The job aspirants said that they will face the police on the streets of Kolkata with all their strength and desperation again in the coming days.
DYFI state president Meenakshi Mukherjee was present at the protest. Regarding the arrest, she said the police have acted unethically to break this movement. Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari and state BJP president Sukanta Majumdar tweeted to condemn the state action.
Read all the Latest News India and Breaking News here
Comments
0 comment