Dismissed teachers, barred from returning to school, assembled around education minister Bratya Basu’s house in Dum Dum on Thursday, demanding they be allowed to work till the end of the year.

The sit-in started at 1pm and continued till 4pm.

United Teaching and Non-teaching Forum members said they withdrew the protest after the minister’s secretary assured them that Basu would soon meet them to discuss their demands.

Calls and text messages to Basu went unanswered till late on Thursday.

Kamalesh Kapat, a spokesperson of the Forum, said they failed to understand why the names of 1,804 teachers were dropped from the pool of 17,206 for whom the state secondary education board had pleaded before the Supreme Court in its April 17 petition that they be allowed to continue till December 31.

When the apex court ruled on April 17 that only teachers “not specifically found tainted” could be allowed to go to school till December and draw salaries till then, the school service commission (SSC) came out with a list of 15,403 eligible teachers.

“This meant 1,804 teachers had been bracketed as tainted teachers whose salaries had to be stopped. We fail to understand why we have been put on the list of the tainted. The CBI, in its submission before the Supreme Court, said some of the teachers stand accused of OMR disputes. The Supreme Court rejected the report. Then, on what basis have we been categorised as tainted?” asked Kapat.

These teachers, however, are not opposed to writing a fresh recruitment test, unlike the 15,403 teachers.

“If the Supreme Court says that we have to write a fresh selection test to retain our jobs, we will not oppose it,” Kapat told The Telegraph.

As protesters gathered outside Basu’s Dum Dum residence, guardrails were brought from the Kalindi police outpost, and the deployment around the minister’s house was intensified.

Police personnel, including woman constables, were deployed around the house and on the road.

“The brief from our superiors was to ensure there was no lawlessness, and that no outsiders should sneak in to create trouble,” said a senior officer of Lake Town police station.

Officers were briefed about abstaining from initiating any action against the protesters. The idea was to show restraint, he said.