Agartala: The chief judicial magistrate’s (CJM’s) court in West Tripura district has started hearing a criminal case filed against the Tripura police for allegedly attacking 10,323 terminated teachers during a protest in Agartala on January 27 this year.

Speaking to reporters, advocate Purusottam Roy Barman said that the CJM on August 3 heard the criminal case against the Tripura police filed by one Biswajit Banik. Banik is one of the 10,323 former teachers who were protesting and a member of the Joint Movement Committee (JMC).

Roy Barman said, “During the hearing, we requested the court to serve notice to the [accused] police personnel. On February 27, an incident took place at a peaceful protest of 10,323 teachers near the Agartala city centre. Suddenly, a huge police force arrived on the spot and beat the teachers, looted many valuable things and raised their hands on women. We said the way police officials worked during the protest was not their duty. Police have no right to attack common people or engage in hooliganism.”

The case was filed against West district superintendent of police Manik Das, officer in charge of West Agartala police station Jayanta Karmakar, SDPO of Jirania Suman Majumder, SDPO of Amtali Anirban Das and DCM of Sadar Ashis Biswas.

The peaceful protest 

The JMC is forum comprising members of three organisations – Justice for 10,323, All Tripura Ad Hoc Teachers Association and Amra 10,323 – which organised an indefinite sit-in protest, demanding a permanent solution for all state government teachers via direct postings.

Police and protesters on January 27. 

On December 7, 2020, the teachers started the indefinite sit-in. On January 27, the state government had imposed Section 144 in and around Agartala city and detained around 160 teachers from the protest site early in the morning, while a section of the 10,323 terminated teachers were sleeping on the road. The protesters had been on dharna for 52 days by then.

“On January 27, which was the 52nd day of our peaceful protest, the state administration imposed Section 144 at around 5:30 am and gave us five minutes to vacate the area. It was impossible to vacate on such short notice. A number of teachers were detained, and two main protest camps were dismantled by the police,” a protesting teacher said.

In response to the violence unleashed against the agitators, another set of teachers converged within a couple of hours outside the City Centre and began marching to chief minister Biplab Kumar Deb’s official residence at Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Lane, located at a distance of 500 metres from the protest site. The state police, along with central paramilitary forces, tried to convince the protesters not to converge in the area.

After persuasions failed, the security personnel unleashed a water cannon, fired tear gas and baton-charged the protesters, resulting in injuries to 80 teachers. A few of the injured were shifted to hospital.The teachers alleged that the police beat them mercilessly, which is why so many were injured and hospitalised.

Dalia Das, another leader of the JMC, said, “January 27 was a black chapter in the history of Tripura. This is the most shameful and barbaric incident. Teachers were whisked away by the police, their clothes were torn, food and other donations given to us at our protest venue were looted. The police acted like goons.”

The administration’s role

Responding to the violence unleashed by the police on protesters, then West Tripura district magistrate Shailesh Kumar Yadav said, “Barricades were set up, we also asked people to leave but they didn’t listen to us, instead they broke the barricades and intensified their protest. Police tried to prevent them but they didn’t listen, so we used water cannon and fired tear gas. They became violent and started pelting stones at the police personnel, injuring many. The agitating teachers also vandalised four police vehicles. Then we had to resort to mild lathi-charge to disperse them.”

Yadav claimed around 87 persons, including 70 protesters and 17 police personnel, suffered minor injuries.

Injured protesters on January 27. 

However, the teachers denied the allegations of the state administration and claimed that “some unruly” persons who made their way into the protest attacked police personnel.A few days after the police action, a teacher filed a case against some male police personnel for allegedly assaulting female teachers.

The saga of the 10,323

The 10,323 school teachers, including graduate teachers, postgraduate teachers and undergraduate teachers, had been inducted into the service in different phases since 2010 under the Left Front government.

In 2014, the Tripura high court terminated all of them and termed their recruitment process unconstitutional. In response to the special leave petition filed by the state government, the Supreme Court later upheld the high court verdict in March 2017.

The teachers in question were supposed to retire after December 31, 2017, but the apex court kept them on an ad hoc basis, and in November last year, the Supreme Court granted them a one-time final extension until March 2020. From the 10,323 teachers, only 8,882 ad hoc teachers were left.In 2017-18, when the BJP began campaigning for the Tripura’s assembly elections, it promised to resolve the teachers’ issues if it came to power.

In May 2018, the BJP-ruled state government moved the Supreme Court to extend the teachers’ services, and on November 1, the apex court granted them a final extension till March 2020. Later, the state government created many vacant posts in Group-D and Group-C categories, for which teachers had to sit for exams.