A bus with 60 dismissed and aggrieved teachers on board set off for Delhi on Monday to protest against their termination at Jantar Mantar on April 16.

The teachers, many of them holding posters that read “CBI has certified us as deserving”, boarded the bus from Esplanade’s Y-channel, the seat of protests for the dismissed school staff since Saturday night.

Many of the posters and banners wrapped around the buses were in Hindi.

The teachers said the posters were in Hindi as they would pass through many Hindi-speaking states.

“Wherever we make stops on our way to Delhi, we want to address people. If the posters are in Hindi, that will help us connect better with the audience,” said one of the teachers.

The bus started at 1.50pm. It is expected to reach Delhi around 10am on Wednesday.

The bus will pass through states like Jharkhand, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh on its way to Delhi.

On the way, the teachers will distribute 10,000 leaflets to spread their message.

The teachers will hold their sit-in a day before the Supreme Court hears the state secondary education board’s plea to let the sacked teachers continue till the completion of the fresh recruitment process or the end of the academic year that began in January, whichever is earlier.

“We want to take our fight to Delhi so we can raise this at the national level,” said Chinmoy Mandal, one of the teachers on the bus.

Mandal, who taught English at a higher secondary school in Halishar in North 24-Parganas, led the delegation of the dismissed teachers that met education minister Bratya Basu at Bikash Bhavan, the education secretariat, on April 11 to discuss ways to end the impasse.

“We want to bring to everyone’s attention that the school service commission gave an affidavit before the Supreme Court that 5,303 teaching and non-teaching staff got their jobs illegally, according to a CBI report. Then how can the apex court terminate the jobs of all 25,753 who had been recruited?” he asked.

The Supreme Court had terminated all the jobs on April 3, saying the entire recruitment process was “vitiated”.

The 60 on the bus included Anup Panda, who is going on behalf of his wife who has lost her job. Anup teaches physics at a madrasa.

Sunanda Bishnu, who used to teach education in a higher secondary school in Burdwan, said: “We want to tell the country about the torment we are going through because of the injustice done to us. In our school, I was the only teacher of my subject. The students are suffering immensely.”

On April 16, 150 teaching and non-teaching staff will assemble at Jantar Mantar to protest from 2pm to 5pm.

Around the same time, the teachers at the Y-channel in Calcutta will also stage a protest.

M e h b o o b M a n d a l , a spokesperson for the Deserving Teachers’ Rights Forum that is spearheading the protest, said: “We want to stage protests in as many places as possible. Since we are bracing for a long fight, different forms of demonstrations are being adopted.”

Several heads of institutions were present at the Y-channel on Monday.

Chandan Maity, general secretary of the Advanced Society for Headmasters and Headmistresses, said, “All necessary legal procedures must be completed immediately to reinstate the teachers with dignity in their respective positions to save the teaching community and the state’s school education system.”