Police thrash education volunteers

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, June 11

Demanding regularisation of jobs, inclusive education volunteers (IEVs), who were recruited in 2008 to educate children with special needs (CWSNs), today faced the wrath of the police during their protest near the District Administrative Complex.

The police thrashed the volunteers and detained them while many women protesters took shelter at the nearby ongoing farmers’ protest site when the police used force.

The IEV members, who had been sitting on protest atop the water tank in Goniana for the last three days, today marched towards the city to protest and block the main Bathinda-Amritsar road but the police cane-charged and rounded them up.

Raising slogans, IEV members accused the state government of driving them towards deprivation and of cheating the public by promising to give jobs to the unemployed.

They demanded the imposition of financial emergency in the state as the government had failed on all fronts.

However, the police detained these protesters but later released them in the evening whereas some protesters from Goniana, who wanted to join the main protest, were cane-charged.

Jaswant Singh, president of the IEV Union, claimed that the police had turned puppet in the hands of the ruling SAD government.

“Women are beaten up in the constituency of Cabinet Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal, who runs the so-called campaign to save the girl child to garner votes. It is the murder of democracy when someone is not allowed to raise his voice against suppression by the government,” he said.

He union leader added that the IEVs were voluntarily teaching the disabled children and had been working since 2008 but the government was not cooperating with them.

“We are regularly apprising the government of our demands but they are not paying any heed. We only get Rs 4,500 per month and that too is delayed,” added Jaswant.