Amritsar: Teachers hold district-level protest seeking justice for colleagues killed, injured during poll duty
Babushahi Bureau
Amritsar (Punjab), December 16, 2025: Teachers’ unions across Amritsar on Tuesday staged a district-level protest to demand justice for teachers who lost their lives or were injured while performing election duty during the Zila Parishad and Block Samiti polls.
After a sit-in, the protesting teachers held a symbolic effigy-burning demonstration against the Punjab government and the State Election Commission, and submitted a memorandum addressed to the Punjab Chief Minister.
The protest follows a tragic incident on December 14, when teacher Jaskaran Bhullar and his wife, teacher Kamaljit Kaur, died after their car plunged into a canal while they were on their way to election duty in Moga district. In a similar incident, associate teacher Rajveer Kaur was injured in Moonak (Sangrur) after her car fell into a canal.
Another accident involved education provider teacher Parmjit Kaur in Patran. Teachers alleged that arbitrary deployment, negligence, and poor planning by the Election Commission and the state government led to multiple such incidents across Punjab, triggering widespread anger within the teaching community.
Addressing the protest, teachers’ leaders Ashwani Awasthi, Sucha Singh Tarpai, Baljinder Singh, Germanjit Singh Chhajalwari, Mangal Tanda, Harjinder Pal Singh Pannu, Aman Sharma, Gurpreet Singh Riyad, Patwant Singh, Pravesh Kumar, and Karanraj Singh Gill demanded immediate compensation of ₹2 crore each for the families of the deceased teachers, to be deposited in the names of their children. They also sought full government support for the children’s education and reserved government jobs for both children.
The unions further demanded ₹20 lakh compensation for teachers injured in Moonak (Sangrur), Patran (Patiala), and other locations, along with full coverage of medical expenses and on-duty status until complete recovery. They also called for withdrawal of FIR recommendations filed against teachers during election duty, and insisted that future election duties be assigned within teachers’ residential or working blocks. An end to dual burdens through separate BLO duties and the cancellation of non-academic assignments for teachers, as promised earlier by the government, were also among the key demands.
District leaders Gurbinder Singh Khaira, Rakesh Dhawan, Harvinder Singh, Manpreet Singh Sanghna, Gurdev Singh, Keshav Kohli, Jaswant Rai, Harpreet Singh Niranjanpur, Kuldeep Singh Varnali, Bikramjit Singh Kolowal, and Nirmal Singh Bhoma said repeated representations to the government and the Election Commission—seeking local deployment, exemption for mothers of young children and seriously ill teachers, and proper arrangements for food and stay at polling stations—had gone unheard.
They also raised concerns over counting-day deployments, alleging that local staff were assigned to distant tehsils and asked to report as early as 6 a.m., forcing employees to travel 40–50 km in dense fog during early hours, putting lives at risk. The unions demanded local-level deployments for counting duties to prevent further accidents.
Warning of escalation, the leaders said that if justice is not delivered promptly to the affected teachers and their families, the agitation would be intensified in the coming days.