Law enforcers near the Public Library in the capital use water cannons on primary school teachers demonstrating for a regularisation of their jobs.Photo: STAR
At least 10 non-government primary school teachers were injured yesterday when police charged batons on them during a demonstration at Shahbagh in the capital.
Three of the injured teachers were rushed to Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
The non-government schoolteachers were demonstrating for regularisation of their jobs.
Police also picked up four teachers from the spot.
Witnesses said around 5,000 agitated teachers were on their way to the Prime Minister's Office from the Central Shaheed Minar around noon to place a memorandum containing the one-point demand for regularisation of their jobs.
Police intercepted their procession and asked them to send a delegation to the PMO to submit the memorandum, Sirajul Islam, officer-in-charge of Shahbag Police Station, said.
But the teachers tried to move towards the PM's office. At one stage, police charged batons on them and used water canons to disperse them around 12:30am.
Teachers have been demonstrating under the banner of “National Non-Government (registered) Primary Teachers' Oikya Parishad”, a platform of four organisations of non-government primary teachers.
Later teachers held a rally and staged a sit-in in front of Shahbagh Police Station from 1:00pm for the release of their four detained colleagues. A portion of the teachers again tried to go to the Shahbagh intersection when police dispersed them.
The road from Shahbag intersection to TSC on Dhaka University was blocked from around 12:10pm halting vehicular movement. The blockade was removed around 6:00pm in the evening.
Talking to The Daily Star, Aminul Islam Chowdhury, chairman of the Oikya Parishad, said the prime minister pledged to regularise their jobs in the election manifesto and repeated that pledge before drafting the previous national budget. Yet the government is showing negligence.
He said that they would go for tougher movement if government does not allot money in the upcoming budget for regularising their jobs.
"If primary education system collapses due to the movement, government will have to take the responsibility," he added.
The teachers returned to the Shaheed Minar after those detained were released at around 6:30pm yesterday.
The teachers started their demonstration from Monday when they staged a sit-in at the Shaheed Minar to press home their demand.
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