KOLKATA: Amidst ongoing protests by a group of teachers who lost their jobs following a Supreme Court ruling that deemed the entire appointment process tainted, a relay hunger strike began outside the West Bengal School Service Commission (SSC) office on Thursday. The protest was sparked by police violence on Wednesday when the teachers attempted to enter the DI office in Kasba, South Kolkata.
Amid the protests, Kolkata Mayor Firhad Hakim stirred controversy by stating that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had instructed the teachers to go to schools, but they ignored her directions and chose to gherao the DI office instead, a claim that has sparked criticism.
The agitating teachers said that their statement was in bad taste when lakhs of students who lost their jobs are in desperate need of employment opportunities.
The teachers and other staff who lost their jobs said that they were also protesting police action against their compatriots at the district inspector (DI) of schools' office at Kasba in south Kolkata on Wednesday.
"We started a relay hunger strike agitation with one teacher at the beginning and will soon chalk out a further programme to protest the issue," one of the protesters told reporters outside the SSC office at Salt Lake here .
The agitating teachers have been holding a sit-in outside the SSC office building 'Acharya Sadan' since Wednesday night to protest the loss of jobs and police action against their compatriots.
The protesters alleged they were subjected to baton-charge and were even kicked and shoved around by law enforcement personnel during their agitation outside the DI office, situated beside Kasba police station of the Kolkata Police.
Noting that the police have lodged cases against the protesting teachers over Wednesday's protest at Kasba, Gangopadhyay said that this should not have been done.
Maintaining that he had not gone to meet Education Minister Bratya Basu on Wednesday in protest against the police action, he said that the BJP leadership was with him in his decision.
Gangopadhyay said that he, along with former Rajya Sabha MP Rupa Ganguly, came to the protest site at Acharya Sadan to express solidarity with the teachers and other staff who lost their jobs.
Gangopadhyay, as a judge of the Calcutta High Court, had ordered a CBI investigation in November 2021 into alleged irregularities in the recruitment process.
The Supreme Court on April 3 upheld a 2024 Calcutta High Court judgment annulling the recruitment of 25,753 teaching and non-teaching staff appointed through a recruitment drive by SSC in 2016, terming the entire selection process "vitiated and tainted".