Shillong, Oct 6: Police on Thursday afternoon lobbed tear gas on contractual teachers and their supporters when they broke a police cordon while trying to move to the State Secretariat.
The contractual teachers under the aegis of the Meghalaya Government Lower Primary School Contractual Teachers’ Association (MGLPSCTA) had planned to march to the Secretariat with their children.
When the tear gas was lobbed women and children were part of the group.
The teachers managed to break the police cordon and made it to the main gate of the Secretariat.
According to reports the president of the MGLPSCTA, Birbor Riangtem was injured around the abdomen during the melee after the tear gas was lobbed. He, however, refused to be hospitalised and is still camping outside the gate of the Secretariat along with other teachers.
Later in the evening members of various pressure groups visited the protesting teachers.
The contractual teachers are demanding their reinstatement after they were dismissed from government lower primary schools in January 2021. Some of them had been working under contract for more than a decade.
When they began work, it was not mandatory to have cleared the Meghalaya Teachers’ Eligibility Test (MTET) but the state government brought in this requirement in 2020. These teachers did not clear the MTET.
The contractual teachers have been protesting at the Civil Hospital point for nearly a month.
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