A teacher and a sacked Group D staff member went to Bidhannagar (North) police station on Thursday, a day after the high court asked them to go to the police station and name those among the protesters who allegedly attacked cops and harassed employees at Bikash Bhavan on May 15.

Indrajit Mondal, a work education teacher at Mitra Institution (Main), said he gave the police details of the events of May 15, when aggrieved school staff stormed the education secretariat.

Mondal got his job in 2011 and went to show solidarity with the sacked staff, he said.

The teachers who have lost their jobs were recruited by the school service commission in 2016.

The Supreme Court on April 3 terminated 25,753 teaching and non-teaching jobs because it said the entire recruitment process was “vitiated”.

Sudip Konar, who was a Group D employee at a school in Hooghly, said he was not at Bikash Bhavan on May 15.

The two reached the police station around 10am and were interrogated till 11.45am.

Senior officers of Bidhannagar Police Commissionerate said their statements
were recorded and would be corroborated with footage from May 15.

“The footage captures the faces of protesters who were present when the gates of Bikash Bhavan were forced open, and how some of the agitators scaled the walls to enter,” said an officer.

“Konar and Mondal’s statements would be verified with the footage. Both denied their involvement in the violence,” he said.

The police have recorded accounts of employees who struggled to leave their offices, located on different floors of Bikash Bhavan, on May 15, during the agitation.

“If required, we will summon both of them again,” the officer said.

Asked if he named those involved in the violence, Mondal said: “The police asked me about this. If I have not seen anyone, how can I identify them? The police have done what they were supposed to do. I have done what I was supposed to do.”

“I did not go to Bikash Bhavan to provoke anything. What happened was not my fault. I have cooperated with the police. If they call me again, I will go again. We don’t think it was unfair to stand with the others. It was a societal responsibility,” he said.

Konar said: “I told the police that I was not present at Bikash Bhavan. I have not come to Calcutta after April 16. So, how could I identify who instigated the violence? It is not clear to me why the police named me in the FIR.”

The police on May 17 summoned 15 people for allegedly instigating or participating in the May 15 violence at Bikash Bhavan, where sacked school staff confined over 3,000 employees for eight hours.