With Ravana, leaders too go up in flames

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, October 18

To mark protest over their long-pending demands, members of the Joint Action Committee (JAC) of teachers burnt an effigy of Ravana and ministers of the ruling government on Thursday.

On the eve of Dasehra, around 1,000 teachers owing allegiance to different unions gathered at Teachers’ Home and raised slogans against the Education Department and ruling government for alleged anti-employee policies.

To express their resentment, members of the teaching fraternity had got a 15-ft tall effigy of Ravana made and pasted pictures of Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh, Education Minister OP Soni, Finance Minister Mapreet Singh Badal and Secretary, Education, Krishan Kumar.

The protesters carried out a procession holding the effigy in different parts of the city before burning it near Hanuman Chowk.

Members of the Farmers and Contract Workers Union and employees from other departments also extended their support to the protest.

The protesters demanded that services of teachers of 5178 Master Cadre Union and SSA/RMSA, who have been rendering services for years, must be regularised at the earliest.

They also criticised various policies implemented by the Education Department and demanded that salaries of teachers must be increased soon.

Managing household expenses with meagre salaries is really difficult for them, said members of the union.

The protesters also appealed to members of different unions that they must extend their support to the teachers, who are observing fast unto death protest in Patiala.

Members of the teachers’ union were also asked to be a part of the protest rally in Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh’s home district on October 21.

To express their displeasure over the alleged anti-employee policies, as many as 70 teachers in the district have submitted their appreciation letters to representatives of the unions and requested them to return these letters to the state government.