Kolkata, Jul 28 (PTI) Hundreds of jobless school teachers and serving West Bengal government employees on Monday took out a rally and staged a sit-in in Howrah city, demanding reinstatement of jobs of the educators and a hike in dearness allowance (DA) of the state administration staffers.
The sit-in was launched as the rally, christened ‘Nabanna Abhijan’ (march to state secretariat), organised by the ‘Sangrami Joutho Manch’, a joint platform of jobless school teachers and state government employees, was stopped by the police at Shibpur short of the state secretariat.
Manch convenor Ashis Khamrui, who was among those on the forefront of the rally, said that the sit-in and march were withdrawn after over three-and-a-half hours following discussions with senior police officers and in view of heavy rain.
“We will declare our future course of action soon. Today, due to rain, we had to withdraw the stir. But we will not leave the street. We will decide on our future steps at an organisational meeting. Our movement will intensify in August,” he added.
Earlier, police put up two tall steel barricades at Foreshore Road to restrict their movement, as the rallyists covered a distance of half a km and sat on the road, asserting that they would not leave until Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee addressed their demands.
“Our demands include the reinstatement of jobs of 26,000 teaching and non-teaching staffers who were rendered jobless following a Supreme Court order and immediate recruitment in primary and upper primary levels,” Khamrui said.
Ashis Banerjee, a state government employee, alleged that the state had failed to hike DA as per the recent Supreme Court order.
“Now, they are citing a Calcutta High Court directive about our rally, but the court never disallowed the rally. It only said the protest shouldn’t obstruct public places like Mangala Haat,” he added.
Howrah Superintendent of Police Praveen Tripathi had earlier said the Calcutta High Court did not allow the ‘Nabanna Abhijan’ (march to Nabanna), and the police would follow the court’s directive.
The manch, however, claimed that the high court had instructed that the rally should not affect the businessmen of Mangala Haat.
Khamrui had said that the rally didn’t go anywhere near the weekly market, which is organised every Tuesday. PTI SUS MNB ACD
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