Punjab: Police lathicharge protesting teachers near CM’s house in Sangrur

Members of the Education Providers Union, who have been protesting for 19 days, said the state government gave them a marginal salary hike when they have been demanding regular pay scale

Punjab Police on Saturday resorted to lathicharge to disperse protesting teachers at Khurana village, 2km from chief minister Bhagwant Mann’s rented accommodation in Sangrur, and detained 20 of them.

Contractual teachers clashing with police during a protest in Sangrur on Saturday against the Bhagwant Mann-led AAP government in Punjab for failing to regularise their services. (HT Photo)

The teachers were demanding regularisation of their services and alleged that the Aam Aadmi Party government had recently given them only a marginal increment while claiming in an announcement that it had regularised 14,239 teachers and other employees of the education department.

Members of the Education Providers Union, who have been protesting near the chief minister’s house for the past 19 days, said that the government did not pay them according to the scale of regular teachers and neither did it offer other benefits that regular employees get.

Union president Manpreet Singh said, “We don’t want an increment in our salaries. We want regular pay scale and regularisation of our services. Therefore, we have rejected this increment.”

Sangrur SSP Surendra Lamba said, “The protesters were getting aggressive and we had to use mild force to control the situation. We have detained 20 protesters. The situation is peaceful now.”

The chief minister is away to Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh for an AAP rally with party leader Arvind Kejriwal.