Jobless teachers begin relay hunger strike near SSC office

 The BJP MP and former judge of the Calcutta High Court Abhijit Gangopadhyay also visited the protesters at the WBSSC office venue earlier in the day.

IANS | New Delhi | April 11, 2025 : Jobless teachers and non-teaching staff of government-aided schools across the state intensified their protests on Thursday, a day after they had a skirmish with the police in front of the district Inspector (DI) schools office at Kasba on Wednesday.

Today, a group of aggrieved school teachers, group C and D employees sat on relay hunger strike at the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) office at Salt Lake while others marched to Esplanade Dorina Crossing from Sealdah demanding the commission, sole body that organises recruitment tests for teachers and other staff in secondary and higher secondary schools in the state, mirror images of candidates, who had appeared in the examination in 2016.

The protestors also came down heavily on police atrocities against them while they marched to the Acharya Bhawan, WBSSC headquarters, on Wednesday.

Prominent faces like Dr Debashis Halder, Dr Asfakulla Naiya, Dr Aniket Mahato and others belonging to the West Bengal Junior Doctors Front (WBJDF) also joined the protest march from Sealdah to Esplanade this afternoon showing solidarity with the aggrieved protesting teachers and non-teachers.

Senior teachers and civil society members were also found shouting slogans against the state government during the protest march. The agitators squatted on the road at Dorina Crossing for more than half-an-hour.

They withdrew the blockade after police intervened.

Amit Ranjan Bhuniya, a qualified assistant teacher of a school in South 24-Parganas district has lost his job following the Supreme Court (SC) order one week ago. Mr Bhuniya, along with other jobless colleagues while demonstrating at the DI office at Kasba on Wednesday, said today: “We were completely unarmed and demanded publication of mirror images of OMR sheets to determine qualified and non-qualified candidates. But the police brutally attacked us. They kicked me on my hip though there was no provocation from us during the protest.”

“We demand mirror copies of the lists, and that the list of genuine candidates be certified and published. We are also protesting against yesterday’s incident at the DI office. And why should the tainted get salaries? We will not give voluntary service,” said an invalidated teacher of a high school in Basirhat.

The BJP MP and former judge of the Calcutta High Court Abhijit Gangopadhyay also visited the protesters at the WBSSC office venue earlier in the day.

“Everything has happened on the instructions of the chief minister Mamata Banerjee. It won’t be surprising if the police attack here at their relay hunger strike programme as well. The state government has no interest in solving the crisis,” said Justice Gangopadhyay.

He met the WBSSC chairman Siddhartha Majumder on Wednesday afternoon and set a deadline till Friday afternoon to make public, mirror images of the OMR sheets submitted by the candidates in 2016 recruitment tests.

The apex court last week had upheld the dismissal of the teaching and non-teaching staff recruited to government-aided schools in the city and districts, citing manipulation and a cover-up.

IANS | New Delhi | April 11, 2025 : A hunger strike by a section of the job losers, including teaching and non-teaching staff, in state-run schools in West Bengal is underway in front of the West Bengal School Service Commission’s office at Salt Lake in Kolkata. The protesters are demanding that the state government and the commission segregate the “genuine” candidates from the “tainted” ones who secured jobs against money.

Notably, the Supreme Court last week upheld a previous order by a division bench of Calcutta High Court, cancelling the entire panel of 25,753 teaching and non-teaching jobs on the grounds that the state government and the commission failed to segregate the “genuine” candidates from the “tainted” ones. The strikers have also given a call to civil society to express solidarity to their hunger strike just as it did when several junior doctors last year went on a similar-hunger strike against the rape and murder of a junior woman doctor of state-run-R. G. Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata last year.

Before beginning the strike on Wednesday afternoon, a protester, Suman Biswas, said: “As long as the segregation is not done and the mirror images of the OMR sheets of all the candidates are made public, we will continue with our hunger strike. If the state government is serious about its commitment to protect the interest of the ‘genuine’ candidates, they should complete the segregation process at the earliest.”

Several BJP leaders, including party Lok Sabha member and former Calcutta High Court Judge Abhijit Gangopahyay and actors-turned-politicians, namely Rupa Ganguly and Rudranil Ghosh, reached the hunger-strike dais to express solidarity. The “genuine” job losers are also scheduled to bring a protest march on Thursday in Kolkata on this issue. “I request the common people and the members of the civil society to join the protest rally in large numbers,” said one of the protesters.