Agartala, Sept 27: Three retrenched teachers of Tripura were injured on Monday when police used water cannons to prevent protestors from breaking a barricade near Circuit House here, police said.
Hundreds of terminated teachers gathered in front of the Rabindra Satabarshiki Bhavan here for participating in the ‘Bidhansabha Abhiyan’ (march to Assembly) seeking their immediate reinstatement into service.
When they tried to break the police barricade near Circuit House, the security personnel overpowered the agitators and used water cannons which led to a scuffle between the two sides, superintendent of police (SP), West, Sankar Debnath told PTI.
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“Three persons are reported to be injured and they were taken to hospital. All of them are out of danger,” the SP said.
However, Dalia Das, leader of a joint forum of the retrenched teachers, claimed that the law enforcers had ‘assaulted some of our associates’.
She expressed her anger over the police’s role in a ‘peaceful’ agitation that left her former colleagues injured.
Das claimed they had met chief minister Manik Saha and Education minister Ratan Lal Nath seeking reinstatement of the retrenched teachers and “they had assured us of doing the needful”.
“Ultimately, the chief minister has not kept his words prompting us to organise the agitation.
“Since this is the last session of the 12th Assembly, we wanted to meet the members of the House because they are committed to the welfare of the people. But we were not allowed. We condemn the brutality of the police,” Das said.
Soon after, the Education minister informed the Assembly that the Government has sympathy toward the retrenched teachers.
“The chief minister is exploring all aspects on how to help them without violating the law,” he said without elaborating it.
Nath was replying to a query raised by Congress MLA Sudip Roy Barman on the fate of nearly 8,000 teachers who are protesting for quite a long time.
The Tripura High Court terminated a total of 10,323 school teachers due to their faulty recruitment process in 2014. These teachers were appointed in postgraduate, graduate, and undergraduate posts in different phases since 2010.
The retrenched teachers and the erstwhile Left Front Government had filed Special Leave Petition in the Supreme Court challenging the order and the apex Court upheld the High Court’s order in 2017.
Of the total 10,323 teachers, over 8,000 were reappointed on an ad-hoc basis, the tenure of which expired on March 31, 2020. (PTI)
