Chandigarh: On Monday, a pre-primary academics’ union chief in Punjab’s Bathinda carried out her faculty duties with a police crew holding a watch on her lest she organise a protest at a authorities operate in Ludhiana the place Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann was the chief visitor.

As footage and movies of the instructor, Veerpal Kaur Sidhana, sitting in her classroom attending to her college students with the police subsequent to her went viral Tuesday, the opposition put the state’s ruling AAP on the mat for “smothering rising voices” of protest towards the federal government.

“I went to take a seat within the classroom with just a few college students in order that they don’t get traumatised with the police presence. There’s a authorized bar on police getting into colleges. For over 20 years, I’ve by no means seen such a transfer undertaken by any authorities,” stated Sidhana.

She leads the Shaheed Kiranjit Kaur Pre-Major Affiliate Adhyapak Union, Punjab, an organisation that’s demanding regularisation of companies in authorities colleges.

Chief of the opposition, senior Congressman Partap Singh Bajwa, slammed the Punjab authorities, saying police in lecture rooms was the Delhi mannequin of faculty schooling, bringing in a revolution that terrified academics and children alike, referring to AAP’s stint in energy within the Capital.

“All this as a result of the instructor would possibly protest for job regularisation? And guess what—she wasn’t even going!” he wrote on X.

🏫 @AAPPunjab Shiksha Kranti in Motion:
Welcome to the Delhi Mannequin – now with police in lecture rooms!
So THIS is what @ArvindKejriwal and @BhagwantMann meant by Training Revolution?

👮‍♀️ 3 uniformed cops sat inside a pre-primary classroom in Bathinda for six hours — to not shield… pic.twitter.com/FdRfLgmr7Q

— Partap Singh Bajwa (@Partap_Sbajwa) August 5, 2025

One other Congress chief, Pargat Singh, stated on X that the tendency of the federal government to detain protesters was a “harmful, dictatorial pattern”.

Akali chief Parambans Singh Romana termed the motion a “disgrace” on the Mann authorities.

The true face of #Badlav and #SikhyaKranti ….police enters a pre-primary classroom in a govt faculty in Bathinda to forestall a instructor from becoming a member of a protest towards the government ‼️@ArvindKejriwal and @BhagwantMann do you realise the impact on such younger impressionable minds when… pic.twitter.com/ooy0muPAm3

— Parambans Singh Romana (@ParambansRomana) August 5, 2025

The Punjab authorities has to date provided no clarification for the incident. ThePrint reached AAP spokesperson Neel Garg by way of message for a remark, however he didn’t reply.

Nonetheless, on the Ludhiana operate the place Mann launched ward and village defence committees to curb drug abuse, he criticised the sooner governments in Punjab for silencing voices of protest.

“Throughout Akali rule, individuals would sit with folded arms in villages when their leaders spoke. Then in 2014, after I turned MP, I advised the individuals to query their leaders. Some MPs from Punjab even complained to me that I had made it troublesome for them to get out of their vehicles in villages as individuals had been asking questions,” he stated.

“That is the change… I’m accountable and something may be requested from me… In Sunam, as soon as somebody dared query Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa throughout a public programme and he was instantly taken away and locked up.”

The Bathinda faculty incident comes lower than per week after a protester was eliminated by the police from the venue of a operate in Sunam the place Mann and AAP convenor Arvind Kejriwal had been talking to mark the dying anniversary of martyr Udham Singh on 31 July.

On the occasion, the person sitting among the many viewers had stood up and held up a banner that stated ‘646 ETT’, referring to the union of skilled academics who’re demanding jobs from the federal government, however was instantly surrounded by the police.

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Crackdown 

Earlier within the day on 31 July, leaders of the ‘646 ETT’ union had claimed that a lot of them had been put beneath home arrest to cease them from protesting towards the federal government.

Even some members of the prolonged household of martyr Udham Singh who had been invited to the 31 July programme alleged that they had been faraway from the stage and detained for hours in a room after they knowledgeable the administration that they are going to demand a authorities job from Mann and Kejriwal.

“I used to be despatched an invite card for the programme to be honoured as a member of the family of Shaheed Udham Singh. I used to be made to take a seat on the stage initially, however after I advised the SDM on obligation that I might be giving a memorandum relating to the pending subject of a authorities job to my son, I used to be requested by the police to step down from the stage and brought to a room the place I used to be made to take a seat for hours,” Jeet Singh, grandson of Udham Singh’s sister Aas Kaur, advised ThePrint Monday.

“The SDM may have simply taken the memorandum himself as a substitute of treating me like this. I used to be an adolescent after I together with my grandmother lit Udham Singh’s pyre in 1974 after his physique was exhumed and dropped at India from London. And that is how the federal government of Punjab honours us right this moment,” he added.

Jagga Singh, Jeet Singh’s son who too was detained in a room after he went searching for his father, stated: “We had been advised that Kejriwal and Mann would meet us within the room to speak about my job. However nobody got here to satisfy us. As a substitute of humiliating us like this, it will have been higher had the federal government shot us useless.”

He added that he had been promised a authorities job by Captain Amarinder Singh when he was CM of Punjab in 2006 however no authorities since then has bothered to fulfil that promise. “I work in a material store and my elder brother works as a painter,” he stated.

When contacted, Sangrur deputy commissioner Viraj Shyamkarn Tidke advised ThePrint that he had acquired a criticism within the matter and was inquiring into it.

Congress chief Sukhpal Singh Khaira put up a put up on X detailing the ordeal of Udham Singh’s family. “The reality about faux revolutionaries like @BhagwantMann who exploit the title of Shaheed Udham Singhji for political functions however disrespect his dwelling relations,” he wrote. Khaira was additionally among the many first to spotlight the Bathinda incident.

On Sunday, protesting pc academics who tried to satisfy the CM in Sangrur had been allegedly roughed up by the police and stopped from assembly him. On 1 August, at Arniwala village in Fazilka tehsil, nearly 50 unemployed academics had been rounded up by the police from outdoors the venue of an occasion attended by Mann and Kejriwal, the place they had been elevating slogans towards the CM. The duo was on a go to to a faculty of eminence in Arniwala.

(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)

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