Over 200 education providers detained to thwart protest

Aparna Banerji

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, February 7

Over 200 teachers of the Education Provider Union were detained in various police raids, which began at 11 pm yesterday.

As 10,000-strong union members of the union were to gather at Mohali today to demand regularisation, union members alleged that union members were picked up and detained in crackdowns at various places.

The union members have been staging a dharna and hunger strike at Mohali for the past 85 days with district-wise teams taking turns to sit on hunger strikes.

Those detained include 40 teachers from Jalandhar, who were picked up from the protest spot at Mohali. As many as 100 teachers from Faridkot were detained when the two buses they were to travel in to Mohali were prevented from leaving near the Faridkot bus stand.

Union leaders and members from Jalandhar and Hoshiarpur were also detained when they were on the way to protest site.

Union state committee member Harjinder Singh Khaira said, “Last night I received a call wherein certain people sought a list of Jalandhar union members from me, which I denied to them. Apprehending trouble, I moved out of my home earlier and currently police are at my home to arrest me. Since 11 last night, homes of various members across the state are being raided and members arrested. The police also uprooted the tent in which we were holding the hunger strike.”

Khaira said, “All of us are now going to Mohali to court arrest. The union teachers who somehow escaped will gather on the Morinda-Ropar road and the Nadia-Chandigarh road. Let the government arrest us, we won’t even seek bail.”

The Sohana police station SHO said, “The teachers were booked under Section 751 of the IPC, but now all of them have been let off.”

Khaira confirmed that 40 teachers (held at Sohana) from Jalandhar and woman teachers were let off.

Mohali SSP Gurpreet Singh Bhullar said, “Teachers were not detained. They were only rounded up for preventive action. They were let off after being presented before the legal magistrate."