Under the aegis of Pratibandhi Suraksha Sangstha, some 1200 people took to the streets at Dispur gate in Guwahati to demand filling up vacant govt posts meant for people with disabilities.
Image credit: UB Photos
Guwahati: Differently abled and blind student protestors were beaten by the police in Guwahati, Assam on Friday. The Pratibandhi Suraksha Sangstha, Assam will move the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) against the police atrocities.
Under the aegis of Pratibandhi Suraksha Sangstha, some 1200 people took to the streets at Dispur gate in Guwahati to demand filling up vacant govt posts meant for people with disabilities.
The sit-in demonstrations were held in association with the Blind Association and Assam Blind Students’ Union. They were agitating to demand a recruitment drive to fill up 4,419 posts lying vacant in different departments under the State government since months.
A report suggested that the police took to baton charge and water cannons to disperse the crowd after the protestors pushed against the bamboo barricade that had been set up to stop them from coming onto the roads. The protestors alleged that no one from the administration came to receive the memorandum of their demands.
“Sources said at least 10 differently abled persons including Nripen Malakar, Amit Basumatary, Ranjit Chetry, Bikash Pegu, Sanjay Sinha, Himangshu Nath and Rejajul Haque were seriously injured. While Nripen Malakar, who is general secretary of Pratibandhi Suraksha Sangstha, received serious injury on his hand and chin, another disabled Amrit was left with fractured hand due to the brutality of the city police. Malakar alleged that police did not bother to take the injured disabled persons to the hospital and instead they were detained and taken to 4th APBN office in Kahilipara,” reported North East Now.
He added that “till today all the assurances and announcements made by the State government for the welfare of differently abled persons of the State have remained only in paper; their implementation is still a far-fetched dream.”
The State Chief Secretary has invited the three organisations for a discussion on the issues they have raised, on October 8.
Assam social welfare minister Pramila Rani Brahma had made an announcement in June, during a meeting with Pratibandhi Suraksha Sangstha and Dristihin Parishad – two organisations working for the rights of the differently able persons in the state. She had said that dates for recruitment will be announced shortly.
“On June 1, we had a meeting with social welfare minister Pramila Rani Brahma and again raised all our demands. We found out that the issues discussed were not recorded in the minutes of the meeting. That means the recruitment drive has not progressed even after a series of meetings,” Malakar added in the report.
“In Assam, around 4,419 posts are vacant under the physically disabled category in different government departments and the number may go up as assessments in some departments are still going on, sources said. Around 523 are grade III posts and around 792 are grade IV posts. Around 3,600 posts of teachers are vacant in Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan,” Malakar said in a report by The Telegraph.
“Around 2,939 posts are vacant in the education department, which is the highest among all departments. There are around 8.5 lakh differently-abled person in Assam of whom more then 50,000 are educated and eligible for various government jobs,” Malakar said.