Three sacked teachers who were holding an indefinite fast outside the school service commission (SSC) office in Salt Lake to protest the termination of jobs, ended their fast on Sunday afternoon.

Suman Biswas, Pankaj Roy and Pratap Kumar Saha had been fasting over the past few days. Roy was the first to start the fast on Thursday. The others joined him on Friday.

Biswas said: “We were forced to withdraw the protest as police was not letting us set up a platform. If anyone was trying to help us..., they were preventing them... We did not have any other option.”

Although thousands of protesters assembled at the SSC office, a rift emerged when the Deserving Teachers’ Rights’ Forum, spearheading the protests, said they had nothing to do with those fasting.

A majority of the sacked school employees shifted their protest to Mayo Road on Saturday morning to distance themselves from another group whose actions gave the impression that they were supporters of a political party. Late on Saturday, the venue was shifted again to the Y-channel.

“The government has been trying... to create a division among us. Possibly, they have succeeded,” said Roy.

A school education department official said those who were fasting had little choice but to withdraw as they ran out of steam when the Forum disassociated itself.

When judge-turned-BJP MP Abhijit Gangopadhyay went to address the protesters outside the SSC office on Friday, he was booed by a large number of teachers.