Late night killing of a teacher by a police head constable following an altercation in the Civil Lines area of Muzaffarnagar on Sunday led to widespread agitation by the teachers community. The agitated teachers held demonstrations in several districts, including Varanasi and Prayagraj, and boycotted the evaluation work of Uttar Pradesh Board examination answer sheets. The teachers are demanding that the murder accused be booked under the National Security Act, the victims family be given Rs 10 crore as compensation and a family member of the slain teacher be given a PCS-rank job. They are also demanding that the last rites of the slain teacher be performed with state honours and in future teachers should not be sent on duty in trucks or containers. The teachers said the protest would be called off only after getting written assurance on all the demands and till then the teachers would not evaluate the answer sheets. The deceased, Dharmendra Kumar, was part of a team of the Education department from Varanasi that had brought Uttar Pradesh Board examination answer sheets to the local SD Inter College in Muzaffarnagar, Superintendent of Police (City) Satyanarain Parjapat said. The team included another teacher and two class four employees and was accompanied by a police team from Varanasi, he added. The teams from the Education department and Varanasi police were waiting in a vehicle for the college gate to open when the incident took place late on Sunday night, he said. Kumar had an altercation with head constable Chander Prakash while they were in the vehicle following which Prakash shot at the teacher using his service weapon, the police officer said. The injured teacher was rushed to the district hospital where he was pronounced dead, the SP said. The body was sent for post-mortem and a case was registered against the head constable. All others present in the vehicle were taken into custody for questioning, he added. Meanwhile, as the news of the killing of the teacher spread like a wildfire, protests started in Varanasi against the murder of Dharmendra Kumar. The teachers, on the call of former teacher MLA Chetanarayan Singh, stopped the evaluation work of the Board answer sheets at all evaluation centres in Varanasi, Prayagraj and other districts of UP. They gathered at Queens Inter College in Varanasi on Monday noon to express condolence on the death and protest against the sensational killing. Evaluation of UP Boards high school and intermediate exam answer copies is going on since Saturday at nine evaluation centres of Prayagraj district. The teachers stopped the evaluation work soon after learning about the killing of Dharmendra Kumar. A total of 11 lakh answer sheets are to be checked in Government Inter College, Anglo Bengali Inter College, KP Inter College, Crosthwaite Girls Inter College, CAV, Bharat Scout Guide Inter College, Agrasen Inter College, Kulbhaskar Inter College and Kesar Vidyapeeth Intermediate College in Prayagraj. In Muzaffarnagar, teachers staged a sit-in protest in front of Chaudhary Chhotu Ram Inter College on Circular Road and raised slogans against the murder of the teacher. Police and administrative officials were pacifying the teachers.

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