West Bengal Scam: Teachers start relay hunger strike to protest job loss, police action

KOLKATA: A section of teachers who lost their jobs following a Supreme Court judgment which held that the whole appointment process was tainted, on Thursday announced a relay hunger strike in protest over the issue.

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 school's 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 further programme to protest the issue," one of the protesters told reporters outside the West Bengal School Service Commission (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.

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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 at Kasba.

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".

Those who were rendered jobless claimed that the reason behind their plight was the inability of the SSC to differentiate between the candidates who secured employment through fraudulent means and those who did not.