A 40-year-old para-teacher, Kanchan Das, died during a night-long sit-in outside the house of Jharkhand Welfare Minister Louise Marandi in Dumka, with protestors claiming that he died due to cold.
The contractual teacher was declared dead by doctors on Sunday, 16 December, and other protesters claimed that he had died of cold on Saturday night, an official told PTI.
Dumka Civil Surgeon AK Jha, on the other hand, said they had information that one para-teacher had died in the course of agitation on Saturday, 15 December.
The para-teachers across the state have been agitating for the last three months over regularisation of their services along with other demands.
They had been staging indefinite rotation dharnas outside Marandi's house since 25 November.
Das, who along with six others, had joined the dharna on Saturday, spent the night outside the minister's house and did not wake up on Sunday morning, other members of the agitation said.
He was rushed to a hospital where the doctors declared him dead.
Asked about the cause of death, AK Jha said, “We are waiting for the post-mortem examination report. Then only we can confirm the exact cause of death.”
The post-mortem was conducted by a medical board comprising a forensic expert, constituted by the district administration. Dumka Superintendent of Police YS Ramesh said the sit-in agitation ended on Sunday afternoon.
Meanwhile, the minister condoled the para-teacher's death and talked to Dumka Deputy Commissioner Mukesh Kumar in this regard.
Referring to the problem of the para-teachers, Marandi said Chief Minister Raghubar Das was abroad presently and she would discuss the matter with him once he was back.
"We want to have a constructive discussion on the problems of the para-teachers," she said.
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