Day after lathi charge, cops file FIR against 70
Tribune News Service
Patiala, March 9
A day after aspiring teachers were cane-charged while marching towards the Chief Minister’s residence, the district police booked around 70 of them, including union leaders, for voluntarily causing hurt.
SAD threatens stir
Akali MLA Harinder Pal Chandumajra said the party would join the protest of ETT-TET pass teachers if the government failed to meet their demands.
AdvertisementChandumajra, who staged a sit-in along with the teachers on Monday, said all partly MLAs would hold a dharna along with the teachers.
He said the government had backtracked from its promise of providing jobs to the youth.
The case has been registered under Sections 353, 323, 186, 188 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Union leaders who have been booked included Jarnail Singh, Manpreet Singh, Sukhdev, Sukhchain, and state president of ETT TET Pass Unemployed Teacher Union Deepak Kamboj. Of the 70 teachers named in the FIR, 20 have been identified.
Condemning the police action, Kamboj said, “Instead of advertising more posts, the government has registered a case against us. We will not give up and keep protesting against injustice.”
Meanwhile, teachers continued their protest near Bhakra Canal and blocked the Patiala-Bathinda road throughout the day. The protesters kept the police and administration on toes as they issued threats to jump into the canal. Yesterday, three aspiring teachers had jumped into the canal to evade police action. They were rescued by the divers.
However, the protesters lifted the dharna late this evening after officials assured them of a meeting with Chief principal Secretary Suresh Kumar on March 12. The teachers, however, said they would continue their indefinite protest at the PUDA grounds, near Dukhniwaran Sahib gurdwara.
In the wake of viral videos wherein the police were seen beating the protesters mercilessly, the former claimed that there was a lot of provocation by the aspiring teachers. They claimed that abuses were hurled on them during the protest. Police sources claimed that women police personnel also sustained injuries in the scuffle.
Mandeep Singh Sidhu, SSP, said, “They (teachers) were creating chaos to get into the limelight. They first abused and pushed the cops. The personnel were compelled to use force to disperse the protesters.”
