Teachers hold protest over death of colleagues on poll duty

Teachers from various government schools in the district staged a strong protest by holding a dharna in front of the District Administrative Complex here on Tuesday. They expressed solidarity with the family of a teacher couple who lost their lives while travelling to join rural body election-related duty on December 14 in Moga district.

The dharna was organised by different teachers’ unions, and a delegation of union leaders submitted a memorandum to Assistant Commissioner (GA to DC) Karanbir Singh. Gurmeet Singh Bhullar, Manjinder Singh, Gurpreet Singh Marimegha, Sukhwinder Singh Dhami, Sital Singh, Partap Singh, Baldev Singh Basra, Kanwardeep Singh, Harpal Singh, Balbir Singh, Narinder Noor, Paramjit Kaur and Jagroop Kaur were among those who addressed the gathering.

They stated that the teacher couple — Jaskaran Singh Bhullar and his wife Kamaljit Kaur — died when their car plunged into a water body while travelling to Moga district on the morning of December 14. The protesters demanded compensation of Rs 2 crore each for the couple’s two children and urged the government to bear their educational expenses.

They also sought compensation of Rs 20 lakh each for teachers injured in Moonak on the day of the rural body elections. The leaders further demanded that teachers be assigned duty at locations closer to their residences and that teachers working as BLOs be exempted from poll duty, citing excessive workload. — OC