Kolkata, Oct 20 (PTI) High drama was witnessed at the site of the sit-in by TET candidates in the city on Thursday night when the police tried to evacuate them saying that the area was under Section 144 Cr PC.

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The agitators ignored the repeated pleas by the police to vacate the spot and moved about 100 m away. They rearranged themselves and sat in groups of not more than five so as not to violate the prohibitory orders and held each other's hands as a mark of solidarity.

The protestors asserted that they will not leave the area without their appointment in state-run or state-aided primary schools immediately leading to the deployment of additional police personnel, including women constables and Rapid Action Force, in the area.

There was, however, no use of force on the part of the police to remove the agitators.

A police officer near the protest site said, "We are trying to reason with the protesters to move away from the spot where prohibitory orders are in force. We are exercising maximum restraint."

Some of the agitators fell sick and were rushed to the nearby Bidhannagar state general hospital, where their condition was stated to be stable, police said.

The agitators put the figure of those who took ill at five.

The indefinite sit-in by about 500 agitating candidates of the Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) 2014 near the headquarters of West Bengal Board of Primary Education entered its fourth day today. They claimed to have qualified the test but were overlooked by the board during recruitment.

Twenty agitators are on hunger strike for the past three days.

They found support from about 100 others who claimed to be TET 2017 candidates and began a dharna about half a kilometer away. There was, however, no police personnel at that spot.

Mimosha Das, one of the protestors, said "We will not leave the spot. We are ready to die if the police use force or starvation. We will not withdraw until each eligible TET candidate of 2014 is recruited."

Another protester said "We now have our backs to the wall. There is no scope for withdrawing our agitation at this stage. We are sitting on one flank of the road and have left the other flanks free for the movement of traffic. We will leave the place only if we get appointment letters."

The protestors at the two spots claimed that they had cleared the tests but were unfairly omitted from the panel despite doing well in two rounds of interviews.

Earlier in the day, BJP state president Sukanta Majumdar visited the sit-in venue and expressed solidarity with the agitating candidates.

The protestors have turned down the requests of the state Education minister Bratya Basu and the president of West Bengal Board of Primary Education Goutam Pal to withdraw the agitation and sit for fresh test and interview.

"The government cannot ask these young men and women, who had cleared the tests and interviews but were overlooked by the corrupt former office-bearers of the board in 2014 and 2017, to start the process afresh. They are now older and some of them will not be eligible to sit for the test anymore. Why should they suffer for the misdeeds of the government?" Majumdar told reporters.

The state government should show flexibility and hold talks with the agitating TET candidates. "We will correct the anomalies and ensure that all qualifying candidates are recruited at the earliest," he said.

One of the agitators told reporters, "If we go through the entire process of written test and interview again, how can it be ensured that we will not be discriminated against again?

Pal, who has been repeatedly calling for the withdrawal of the agitation, said that the Board cannot directly recruit the TET 2014 candidates if their names do not figure in the panel and asked them to sit for the tests and interviews again.

"How can we take candidates from outside the panel merit list? The board will not be in a position to accede to such pleas," he said.

About reports that eligible TET candidates were deprived of jobs while undeserving ones were chosen during the tenure of his predecessors, Pal said, "The matter is being investigated and as per the directive of the (Calcutta) high court. Several candidates have already been recruited."

The Board president said, "We are ensuring transparency and fairness in the recruitment process. I urge the agitators to have faith in us and withdraw the sit-in, which is disrupting the functioning of the Board".

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)