Despite police lodging cases against four of their leaders, the agitating contractual workers of the Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) are still camping atop the overhead water tank in the education directorate.
On Saturday the police slapped cases against Anand Badoni, Vipin Rawat, Jagat Singh Rana and Jaspal Panwar under section 309 and 109. The In- charge of Raipur police station, Abul Kalam confirmed the police action. He said that the four are booked for instigating the RMSA workers due to which four of them had scaled the overhead water tank in the wee hours of Friday.
The RMSA workers however resolved to continue their agitation. The spokesperson of the contractual laboratory/ office assistants of RMSA, Vipin Rawat said that the statement of the Director General (DG) of school education, D Senthil Pandian in which he had said that the education department does not need services of those scaling the overhead water tanks and the department would instead do a fresh recruitment is most unfortunate.
He questioned the propriety of such a statement and reminded that the department renewed the contract of 1201 workers who were deployed under Uttarakhand Purva Sainik Kalyan Nigam limited (UPNl) after the members of the association scaled the overhead tank at parade ground. He accused the state government for not keeping its word on adjustment all the 1831 RMSA workers.
Rawat said that the workers are not scaling the tank for fun. The department had reinstated 1201 workers who were employed under UPNl but left out remaining 628 those who were employed under HIlTRON. The workers of the RMSA who are camping at the base of the overhead water tank are determined to continue their agitation till they receive joining orders from the government. These workers are also planning to knock at the door of Uttarakhand High Court to seek justice for them.