Teachers raise slogans while staging a protest on the premises of district education office at Laheriaserai in Darbhanga on Friday. Picture by Mukesh Kumar Jha

Seven teachers of primary and middle schools in Darbhanga have started a fast-unto-death on the district education office premises from Thursday demanding posting after they were allegedly promoted.

Five of them are set to retire on July 31. The other two would superannuate on August 31.

The teachers — Roop Narayan Jha, Shiyaram Chaudhary, Gopal Mishra, Moti Chaudhary, Janki Raman Jha, Kumari Rekha Verma and Tapti Sen Gupta — have been getting their salaries in conformity with the payscale fixed on the basis of senior secondary education-level. They have started protest demanding that they be promoted to the scale of graduate-level.

They claimed that their promotion list had been prepared but without the letter of posting it was of no use. The teachers, all under the banner of District Primary Teachers’ Association, alleged that they had become victims of “callous” attitude of district education officer Chandra Shekhar Kumar.

Kumar, however, said the teachers’ strike was illegal.

“Staging a dharna and sitting on a fast-unto-death are illegal because they (the teachers) have not taken permission from the district administration,” the officer said.

“I was confined to my office on Thursday and the teachers forced me to sign some documents. A timely intervention of police saved me. I did not expect teachers to behave the way they did. We have a committee that collectively decides on promotions. I have called an emergency meeting on Saturday. The official works are being hampered as they have chosen my office premises for their demonstration,” Kumar said.

The committee under Kumar’s chairmanship, which is empowered to take a decision in this regard, has taken no step to promote these teachers. However, the acting president of District Primary Teachers’ Association, Raghunath Prasad Bhagat, claimed otherwise.

“If these teachers were not set to get promotions, then whose promotion list was prepared? These teachers will retire this month and they cannot claim the post-retirement benefits if they are not given a posting soon,” he said.

Sources said there are 2,304 primary and middle school teachers in the district and the promotion of a number of them is pending.