123 Kolkata: We are already in pain, and now the police are trying to portray us as criminals, alleging we attacked them first, said Amit Ranjan Bhuniya, a physical science teacher from Kultali in South 24 Parganas, who was kicked on the chest by a sub-inspector of Kasba PS during Wednesday's protest at the DI office. He spoke on Friday, minutes after Kolkata Police top brass blamed the teachers for Wednesday's trouble.
"What could have been our motive? What did we gain from it? Everyone saw how a policeman kicked me. We are the victims, not criminals," Bhuniya added while waiting outside the School Service Commission office in Salt Lake on Friday.
The reaction came shortly after CP Manoj Verma and Joint CP (crime and traffic) Rupesh Kumar held a press conference, showing multiple videos and photos blaming the teachers and claiming there were calls to burn down the district school inspector's office.
However, protest leaders rejected this narrative, calling it a deliberate attempt to criminalise their movement. "The cops are lying about the entire scenario," said Mehbub Mandal, a prominent face of the protest who was present at Kasba on Wednesday. "One of the teachers was so frustrated he was crying and screaming that he would pour petrol on himself. That is the audio they are misrepresenting. No one spoke of burning down any office, and no teacher has ever damaged govt property."
More than 2,500 aggrieved teachers, recently dismissed following a Supreme Court verdict that nullified their appointments, staged a protest march on Friday from Karunamoyee in Salt Lake to the West Bengal School Service Commission (SSC) Bhavan, demanding the release of Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) sheets to identify genuine candidates.
After the march, they camped outside the SSC office as 13 teachers and non-teaching staff went inside to meet education minister and SSC officials for a three-hour meeting.
"Do the cops have any evidence of any of us carrying any arms during Wednesday's protest or at the rallies on Thursday and Friday? We are teachers, and all we were carrying were our pens and hearts full of pain. We plead with the cops not to tag us as criminals," said Sidhartha Shankar Mondal, another jobless teacher who was also injured during Wednesday's scuffle at Kasba and participated in Friday's march.
Waving placards and shouting slogans, they asked the SSC to disclose the OMR sheets to differentiate between eligible and ineligible candidates. However, while Thursday's rally saw a number of faces — many of them Left associates and civil society members — who marched during the RG Kar protests joining the protests, on Friday, there was a public announcement by aggrieved teachers asking outsiders to stay out of the protest march.
"We don't want any outsiders in this rally. This is our protest, and we don't want the issues to get diluted because of outside interference or unnecessary politicisation," said one of the jobless teachers.
A large section of jobless teachers maintained distance from Abhaya Mancha members like Dr Punyabrata Goon and other known faces, despite Goon sitting next to the three teachers staging a hunger strike and suggesting setting up a medical camp at the spot over the weekend.
"We have crossed multiple hurdles to pass the exam and get a dignified job. We had to submit papers 22 times and go through different selection process including written test, verification and interview. Why will we lose our job for others' corruption? We want to get back our job and dignity," said Shiuli Batabyal, an aggrieved teacher from Memari in Burdwan who taught life science at Parahati Baburam Girls High School