‘Suicide bid’ by teachers protesting outside education minister Pargat Singh’s residence

Several protesting unemployed teachers of the B.Ed TET Pass Unemployed Teachers Union on Wednesday allegedly attempted suicide in front of the residence of Education Minister Pargat Singh. While the Cabinet minister’s home has turned into a cantonment as regular protests have been taking place outside his residence for the past over a month, teachers today took it a step further as several of them poured oil on their bodies in a bid to attempt suicide. While chaotic scenes were witnessed as unemployed teachers raised slogans against the state government, things got heated up when several of them tried to attempt suicide. Cops apprehended several teachers as they poured oil on themselves while being apprehended by the police.

Teachers Sandeep Gill, Amandeep Sekha, and Jagsir Singh poured oil on themselves and tried to light matches before being prevented by cops and colleagues. Two teachers who have been protesting atop a tank in Jalandhar– Jaswant Ghubaya and Munish Fazilka — had also threatened suicide.

While the state government recently released notification for the recruitment of 4,185 teachers, in response to a three-month protest by B.Ed TET Pass Unemployed Teachers Union, teachers have in turn complained that there is no clarity yet whether these recruitments also include posts of SST, Hindi, and Punjabi teachers. Their three-month-long protests have been on the prime demand of advertisements of posts of 9,000 teachers specifically in the aforementioned subjects. Union leader Sukhwinder Singh Dhilwan said, “Teachers are fed up with the government’s doublespeak that’s why they had to take this step today.“The government has released notification but teachers can’t apply yet. Also, there is no clarity whether these include the three subjects in which we need maximum recruitments,” he said.