Morung Express News
Dimapur | April 19
Aggrieved Teachers Association Nagaland (ATAN) has stepped into the second day of their agitation with 50 volunteered aggrieved teachers to carry on the indefinite hunger strike and rest of the members are observing sit-in protest. Without quenching their thirst or hunger, the volunteers, mostly women are leading the agitation.
Unfortunately four women volunteers have been admitted to Dimapur District Hospital for medical attention. Two were admitted in the afternoon and the other two in the evening.
It was informed that in the morning a medical team visited the spot and later in the afternoon, another medical team from Dimapur District Hospital checked the volunteers’ condition.
Late in the evening, Assistant Director (OSD for Legal) of School Education Department Lipok visited the spot and appealed to the ATAN members to suspend the agitation since the department has already submitted a proposal to the cabinet to ‘revoke the abeyance’.
Also, the ATAN executives in a meeting with principal director of School Education Department, Bendangkokba IAS, who reached Dimapur today late in the evening requested ATAN for the same.
However, an executive of the association said ATAN members will not suspend the agitation until they get what they have demand ed because they feel the government might repeat the same act of negligence. Stating that last year, the government had given them ‘written assurance’ but nothing has been implemented so far. “...we demand positive response from the cabinet.”
Also, ATAN has informed its members in other districts to join the ongoing hunger strike at Dimapur. The members are directed to reach the site by 3:00 pm on April 21. “Absentees in this strike will not be entertained in the future,” the ATAN stated in a press statement.
The agitation was launched on April 18, the association observed mass hunger strike and had camped overnight outside the District Education Officer’s office in Dimapur. Interestingly, one of the biggest Christian organisations in Nagaland, Nagaland Baptist Church Council, started its 75th anniversary celebration today.
