Punjab: Faced by lathis, 2 jobless teachers jump into canal in Patiala

PATIALA: Five unemployed teachers were injured and two jumped into the Bhakhra canal in Pasiana to escape as police cane-charged them to foil a protest march here on Sunday. Hundreds of teachers eligibility test (TET) qualified jobless protesters were demanding job opportunities and trying to march to chief minister Amarinder Singh's Patiala house when Patiala police used force to stop them. The injured had to be hospitalised, one with a fractured leg.
The protesters had gathered in the morning at Nehru Park in Patiala. The police cordoned them off in order to prevent their coming outside and starting a march. However, protesters jumped the walls of the park and ran towards the CM house, following which the city police chased them.
The police cane-charged the protesters and rounded up 10 of them, including state president of the TET pass ETT unemployed teachers union Deepak Kamboj, at around 3 pm. The protesters started moving in different directions with some of them reaching Bhakhra Canal on Patiala-Pasiana road.
Two protesters, identified as Gurvinder Singh and Phulbagh Singh, jumped into the canal. However, they were fished out by divers kept ready by the police.
Among those hospitalised were Mansa's Amandeep Singh, who got his leg fractured; Patiala's Gurpreet Ram; Mansa's Keshav Kumar; Jalandhar's Des Raj; and Beant Singh of Mansa. Turbans of the protesters were also tossed during the police action, they alleged.
"Over 500 unemployed elementary teacher training (ETT) and TET pass union members had reached Patiala to carry out a protest march on Sunday. There are over 14,000 unemployed members of the union. We have been raising demands with the state government to get employment promised to them," Kamboj said.
"Unemployed teachers are demanding that the state government should issue recruitment notification for all 12,000 vacant posts and 595 backlog posts. It should also raise the upper age limit to 42 years," he added.
The protesters claimed that despite the fact 12,000 posts were lying vacant in Punjab, the government has advertised only 1,664 posts for border cadre, which was a cruel joke with them. The government, on one hand promise employment in its manifesto, but on other hand is playing dirty tricks and mocking on the unemployed," a union member said.