Charuni with them, teachers block Airport Road for 3 hours

Mohali: The protesting 646 unemployed Physical Training Instructors (PTI) Teachers Union received a shot in the arm when Haryana Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU) leader

Gurnam Singh Charuni

joined their protest on Monday. The teachers blocked Airport Road near Singh Shaheedan Gurdwara for over three hours before police lifted the barricading they had installed.

Concurrently, Elementary Teacher Training-Teacher Eligibility Test (ETT-TET) Qualified Unemployed Teachers Union members also blocked the Kharar highway for hours, disrupting traffic.

The coordination committee of 646 unemployed PTI Teachers Union said that three of their members are still staging a fast unto death on top of the water tank. They said they would commit suicide one by one if their demands were not met.

Union president Gurlabh Singh alias Bhola said, “When he was an MLA, Pargat Singh promised us that if he became minister, he would get our appointments regularised at the earliest but an honest political leader like Pargat also forgot the promise he made after becoming minister. We have also presented a memorandum in this regard.”

Aman Rana and Dharampal Nukerian are still sitting atop the water tank near Desu Majra and have threatened to jump if the Punjab government does not fulfill their demands.

Representatives of the teachers’ union, who were wearing black ribbons, said their two members stationed on the water tank were facing several problems.

Union president Deepak Kamboj, said, “In 2016, we raised our demands when present Punjab finance minister Manpreet Singh Badal and MP Preneet Kaur visited us. They assured that our demands would be fulfilled. Even after four years of being in power, the ruling dispensation is ignoring us.”

The teachers demanded that one lakh ETT teachers recruitment notification must be published, only EET-TET pass teachers must be considered for appointment, age limit must be relaxed, points for higher qualification must be abolished and extra weightage given to education providers and volunteers must be withdrawn.