Hundreds of members of the All Bengal Teachers' Association (ABTA) and All Bengal Primary Teachers' Association (ABPTA) clashed with the police in the northern city of Siliguri on Monday, April 17. The teachers were holding a protest march demanding hikes in their salaries.

The teachers were marching to Uttar Kanya, the North Bengal Secretariat of the state government, from Jalpai More to press for their demands when they were stopped at the Tinbatti More area. As they tried to break through the police barricades, a clash broke out, as per a report by PTI.

A police officer said that the protesters were trying to move beyond the police cordon to the area where prohibitory orders were in place. "Mild force, along with water cannons had to be used to disperse them," he said. 

Later a five-member delegation of the teachers went to the secretariat to hand over a memorandum of their demands to the state government. Among the demands is an increase in dearness allowance, non-implementation of NEP 2020, recruitment of eligible teaching job aspirants and arrest of all those accused in the school jobs scam.

Both the teachers' organisations are backed by the CPI(M). The party claimed that several teachers were injured in the police action, but the latter countered that it did not have information about the serious injury to any agitator. "Many protesters were detained and later released," police said.

CPI(M) Rajya Sabha MP Bikash Bhattacharya, who led the march, alleged, "The police action on the teachers brought to the fore the anti-people and anti-teacher face of the TMC government. Today's (April 17) incident proves, this government is run by uneducated people," as per PTI.