Clashes between police, protesting teachers in Bengal; several injured

Several teachers and police personnel were injured following a major stand-off between them resulting in a police lathi charge at Saltlake's Bikash Bhawan on Thursday night.

Police claimed to have applied "minimal force" on teachers, defending their action on the sacked teaching and non-teaching staff. Several teachers were injured and they have been hospitalised with injuries on their head, legs and eyes.

Meanwhile, the teachers have called for a rally inviting people from all walks of lives to protest the police "excesses".


The teachers, who lost their jobs after the Supreme Court last month upheld a Calcutta HC order to cancel the appointments of 25,752 teaching and non-teaching staff in the cash-for-jobs scam, have been protesting for the last ten days. "Altogether 19 police personnel were injured. We will take legal action against those who provoked the unrest. We have CCTV footage," ADG South Bengal Supratim Sarkar said. "Police had to act to bring out the employees from Bikash Bhawan. We had no intention to stop the movement of teachers. Police tried to reason with them but they broke the barricades and literally took over the premises," ADG (law & order) Javed Shamim said. However, the protesting teachers countered it saying: "The 'minimum force of the police' has led to severe eye injuries, broken legs, and bleeding heads of the teachers." The teachers have claimed that they were beaten brutally and lathi-charged and many of them have received serious injuries.

The teachers claimed that there were outsiders, wearing police uniforms and falsely posing as police. "Wearing the police dress, some people tortured us. When we asked them, these personnel could not show us any identity," another teacher said. Contrary to the teachers' claim, Shamim said, "We are sympathetic to the protestors who are losing their jobs. We have applied minimum force. The right of freedom of movement is there."