Injured teachers resume protest at Bikash Bhavan again, demand separate list of tainted candidates

Teachers protesting against the alleged irregularities in the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) recruitment process resumed their agitation on Friday morning outside Bikash Bhavan in Salt Lake, Kolkata. This came hours after a police lathicharge on Thursday night left several demonstrators injured. Despite their injuries, many returned with bandages to continue the protest, demanding justice and transparency.

On Friday, a large number of teachers gathered around the Education Department headquarters. Some protestors attempted to breach police barricades and enter the premises, prompting immediate deployment of additional forces from the Bidhannagar Police Commissionerate to maintain order. Many of the protestors involved in the previous night’s crackdown were visibly injured but continued participating in the protest.

The teachers’ primary demand is the publication of two separate lists—one for candidates allegedly involved in corruption and one for those considered eligible and recruited purely on merit. According to the protestors, the absence of such categorisation is affecting the careers of genuine candidates who were not involved in any form of malpractice. They have alleged that the authorities are failing to differentiate between the “tainted” and “innocent” candidates.

The protest follows a Supreme Court ruling dated April 3, in which the bench upheld an earlier Calcutta High Court decision that cancelled the recruitment of 25,753 teachers. The Court observed that both the WBSSC and the state government had failed to identify and separate tainted candidates from legitimate ones, thereby necessitating the cancellation of the entire recruitment list. The state government and WBSSC have filed a review petition against the verdict.

On Thursday, the protest had intensified when teachers surrounded Bikash Bhavan from all sides starting early morning. Around 10 p.m., police personnel arrived in large numbers and carried out a lathicharge to disperse the crowd. Several teachers were seriously injured in the operation. Despite this, many of them stayed overnight in the surrounding areas and returned to the protest site the next morning, continuing their sit-in outside the Education Department headquarters. Security around the building remains heightened.