Teachers’ stir chokes city’s lifeline

LUDHIANA: The Ludhiana-Jalandhar Bypass, one of the busiest junctions in Ludhiana, went out of bounds for traffic for whole one hour when nearly 25,000 teachers from 10 different unions across the state blocked National Highway-1 on Sunday.
Importantly, the police used mild lathicharge and water cannon to stop teachers from blocking the national highway, but to no avail.

Angry with the state government, teachers demanded regularization of contractual staff with full grade pay, pension for teachers under Sarav Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), recruitment on vacant posts, appointment of safai karamcharis to government schools and early release of salaries.

They also sought change in the newly introduced transfer policy, under which no teacher would get transfer before three years of posting and no teacher would stay at one school for more than seven years.

Earlier, the teachers starter gathering at the grain market near Ludhiana-Jalandhar Bypass at 10am.

Initially, the teachers staged a protest against the government at the grain market and raised slogans till 4pm. However, when no representative from the local administration turned up to listen to their demands, the teachers started heading towards the main Ludhiana-Jalandhar bypass chowk.

As soon as the teachers started coming out of the grain market, the police that had already installed barricades tried to stop them. However, the teachers outnumber police personnel and crossed the barricades. Though police used mild lathicharge and water cannon, they failed to stop protesters from blocking the highway.

Teachers blocked all sides of bypass chowk and left the traffic on National Highway stranded.

Following this, the police made diversions at all points but could not prevent harassment for the commuters.

To control the situation, deputy commissioner of police Ashwani Kapoor reached the site and received a memorandum from teachers.

The protest was called off at 5.15pm only after the official got the meeting of teacher union fixed with Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh.

DCP Kapoor said, “We have got the meeting of teacher union fixed with the CM on April 2.”

By late evening, the Ludhiana police registered a case against the protesters for blocking the highway.

Additional deputy commissioner of police-I Gurpreet Singh said, “The police have registered a case for violating the orders under Section 144 of the CrPC as GLADA ground has been allotted for agitations. Besides, the police have also added sections for blocking the national highway.

The ADCP said the police have got the agitation videographed that would help them identify the protesters.