Many schoolteachers alleged on Friday that they were being forced to write a fresh selection test to retain their jobs even though, individually, they have not been found guilty of any malpractice.

A cat-and-mouse game between police and the protesters played out at several places as the teachers tried to rally against a fresh hiring notification.

The teachers alleged a police crackdown on them.

On Friday afternoon, a heavy police deployment was evident at key locations like Sealdah station and Esplanade as hundreds of sacked teachers gathered to seek a meeting with the chief minister at state secretariat Nabanna.

The demonstrators, many of whom have been staging a sit-in outside Salt Lake’s Bikash Bhavan, the education secretariat, for over 20 days, made their way to Sealdah via Metro trains and planned their protest march from there.

At Sealdah, a large police contingent was stationed at the entrance gates of the railway station and the Green Line Metro route connecting Sealdah and Howrah.

As protesters began arriving, many were detained as soon as they stepped out of the station.

Officers at Sealdah station were seen making public announcements on loudhailers to discourage an assembly.

At Esplanade, police deployment was intensified at the Dorina crossing and other strategic locations.

Officers questioned demonstrators to confirm if they were associated with the 2016 teacher recruitment panel. Upon identification, several were taken away in prison vans and released later.

Brindaban Ghosh, a protester who was detained at Esplanade, said. “We were protesting peacefully. The judiciary has failed to deliver justice. We wrote tests in 2016 and got jobs legally. The government committed irregularities in the appointment of some, for which the entire panel has been cancelled. Can we not protest this?”

Subhra Ghosh, also detained at Esplanade, said: “None of us are terrorists. The way we are being treated is
unacceptable. We were asked if we are teachers, and then we were detained.”

At 12.32pm, a coordinated detention drive was carried out at Esplanade by deputy commissioner of police (central) Indira Mukherjee and a team of officers. Protesters were apprehended at various spots, including inside two retail outlets, where some teachers had sought shelter.

Mukherjee told reporters: “We did not have information about any gathering here. As it is a restricted area, we took necessary action according to the law.”

Even as these teachers vowed to continue their protests, The Telegraph spoke to some who reconciled themselves to writing the fresh test to retain their jobs after December 31.

The protesting teachers are those whom the Supreme Court on April 17 allowed to work till the end of the year.

“The Supreme Court in the same order said these teachers must write the test to retain their jobs after December. We did not have a choice,” said an education department
official.

The government has given relaxations, like weightage to teaching experience, to these teachers in the fresh process. That does not seem to have pacified them.

After the police chased away the agitators from Esplanade and Sealdah, they assembled in front of Bikash Bhavan and started a protest there around 2.30pm. Bidhannagar Police detained some of them.

Anish Sarkar, deputy commissioner of police, Bidhannagar zone, said: “The teachers have been barred from staging any protest outside Bikash Bhavan by Calcutta High Court. So, we didn’t allow their assembly.”