“Poor election mgt”: Punjab teacher unions protest demanding Rs 4 cr for couple who died on way to poll duty

The protest was ended and the highway cleared after the Moga administration assured that education minister Harjot Singh Bains will hold a meeting with them at Chandigarh on January 27. Vikram Dev and Digvijay Pal Sharma, the two teacher union leaders who head separate factions of Democratic Teachers Front (DTF), said, “The struggle against the insensitive and biased attitude towards the teacher couple will continue until the deceased teachers get justice.”

The couple is survived by two children: a son and a daughter.(Express Photo)

The leaders demanded that all kinds of non-educational work including elections be stopped for teachers.

Another teacher leader Jasvir Talwara said that despite repeated demand of the teacher unions to the State Election Commission to assign duties at the local level, various district administrations assigned duties to teachers at distant places, due to which teachers and employees of other departments risked their lives and that of their family members to reach their duty places in the foggy weather. On the same day, where this teacher couple from Moge district lost their lives after meeting with an accident on the way, a teacher from Sangrur district, Rajvir Kaur, who was going on election duty, also suffered serious injuries due to a similar accident, for which she is still undergoing treatment.

Protest rally by teachers in Moga, Sunday. (Express photo)

The leaders demanded that compensation of Rs 2 crore each be immediately released for the family of Jaskaran Singh and his wife Kamaljit Kaur and a written promise be given to the children of the deceased teachers that they will be given government jobs after they complete their education. “And till then, the government should bear the entire expense of educating both children till postgraduation,” they said in a statement.