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Death becomes the standard
threat in Punjab
WSN Network
KAPURTHALA: In a
series of events that underlined the total lack of imagination and
the bankruptcy of ideas within the government, groups of protesters
had been holding district administration at one on the other place
to ransom by issuing threats of self immolation.
Days after a
teacher in Kapurthala immolated herself and died, a large number of
teachers who have been demanding jobs from the Punjab government,
had been issuing threats that they will commit suicide if the
government did not act quickly on their demands. Only last
Wednesday, some 80 unemployed protesters with Elementary Teachers
Training (ETT) actually carried bottles of kerosene oil and petrol
in their hands and threatened to set themselves afire.
Highly worried
officials of the police, health and education departments besides
the executive magistrate and mediapersons watched even as the
agitating teachers carrying bottles of petrol threatened to end
their lives. They were protesting against the efforts by the police
and officials to carry away one of the protesters, Harjit Kaur, who
was on "fast unto death".
She was finally
removed to hospital even as her condition deteriorated. But as the
teachers threatened to set themselves on fire, the police was forced
to release the woman who quickly joined back the protests. So much
so that the protesting teachers even produced a handwritten
undertaking from the parents of the woman that said that they will
have no objection even if she died as a result of the fast.
While on the one
hand it shows the utter desperateness of the teachers, it also
explodes the myth of the favourite slogan of Punjab politicians who
are never tired of claiming that they want to turn
Punjab
into
California.
24
February 2010
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