- Abhijit Nath, NET Correspondent, Tripura
Agartala, September 26, 2022 : Tension prevailed at Agartala city on Monday noon after a “Bidhan Sabha Abhiyan” was taken out by the retrenched 10,323 teachers’ group were peacefully marching to the Tripura Legislative Assembly demanding the government for initiating a permanent solution of their life has turned violent.
The march which started from Swami Vivekananda Maidan here on Monday noon was stopped by Tripura police and TSR personnel by erecting barricades adjacent to Bipani Bitan in front of Circuit House here. As the protestors tried to break the barricades and move ahead, police used water cannons, resorted to lathi-charge and burst tear gas shells to disperse them. This led to a massive scuffle between the terminated 10,323 teachers and the police personnel which left several injured critically.
One of the sacked teachers said “We were peacefully marching for Assembly and would have raised our voice for initiating a proper and permanent solution for the terminated 10,323 teachers group. In this two-day monsoon session of the state assembly, the treasury bench is least interested in the welfare of the common people including us and our families. Our families are starving. We have no work, we are indebted to different banks and our properties may be seized any time, where will our children go?”
“The terminated teachers have been appealing to the government for a permanent solution and we are heading towards the sacred assembly. But we were stopped in front of Circuit House here in Agartala city by a huge contingent of police and state rifles’ personnel as we are terrorists and going to kill the elected representatives. The government, which claimed to be the well-wishers of the common people, seemed to be fooling us all with fake commitments made in their vision document”, the protestor said in a lamenting voice.
Later, police arrested the retrenched teachers and took them to AD Nagar police ground.
Meanwhile, Congress MLA Sudip Roy Barman raised the issue of terminated 10,323 teachers during zero-hour discussion on the second day of the state assembly’s monsoon session and sought the treasury bench’s attention to come out with a permanent solution. In reply to this, Education minister Ratanlal Nath said that the government is taking note of it and the new Chief Minister is planning to settle the problem of 10,323 teachers soon.
