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Reinstatement demand: Cops cane-charge assistant profs marching towards minister’s house
Amid cane-charge, finger of a 30-year-old assistant professor Jodha Singh was fractured when cops were assaulting the APs. He is posted at botany department of Mohindra college
Members of 1,158 assistant professors (APs) and librarian front were lathicharged by policemen when they were marching towards the residence of higher education minister Gurmeet Singh Meet Hayer in Barnala on Monday. The police have also detained them and they were lodged at various police stations till filing of the news report.
The protesting APs were seeking a meeting with chief minister Bhagwant Mann to demand the reinstatement of 1,158 assistant professors whose recruitments were quashed by the high court.
Dozens of protestors sustained injuries while finger of a 30-year-old assistant professor, Jodha Singh, was fractured when cops were assaulting the APs. He is posted at botany department of Mohindra college, Patiala. He was among those 124 assistant professors, who were allotted with stations before the cancellation of their recruitment.
Citing technical shortcomings, the recruitment was challenged in the court and on December 3, the court stayed the process. On August 8 this year, the court cancelled the recruitments, according to the protestors. They said that before cancellation of recruitment, 607 assistant professors had already joined the services while 124 of them were doing their duties at various colleges across the state.
They said that all these 607 assistant professors had joined the services after resigning from their previous jobs.
Earlier in the morning, the protesters gathered at Kachehri Chowk of Barnala around 10 am and blocked the road till 2:30 pm. Later they moved toward the minister’s residence, where they were lathicharged after 4pm.
Karamjeet Singh, convener of the front said, “Our future is hanging in the air as there are no efforts being made by the state government for reinstatement of 1,158 assistant professors’ recruitment. We want the government to fight for us in the court with pure intentions.” However, they are not doing anything and we were forced to stage a protest today. But instead of listening to us, they assaulted us,” said Karamjeet.
Another assistant professor, Daljit Kaur (29) of Patiala, who was detained at Tapa police station, said, “Today, the Aam Aadmi government has proved that they are working on the patterns of the former Congress and Akali government. Earlier the Congress government did not take our case seriously when it was challenged in court and now AAP is also doing the same.”
SP (D) Barnala, Ramneesh Kumar said, “We have to take such action as they (APs) were breaking and damaging barricades. We were stopping them from damaging barricades.”
“They were taking law and order situation in their hands. They had damaged few barricades and scuffled with cops. Therefore, we took permission from sub divisional magistrate and used mild force to restrain them,” said Sandeep Kumar Malik, SSP Barnala. He added that they have arranged a meeting of the aggrieved APs with CM. “Time of meeting was two week later but they were adamant to get meeting on tomorrow,” said SSP.
