Rage continues amid scurry to flee Arson and assault before bandh relief

April 24: Two persons were beaten up and a car and a scooter set on fire as bandh supporters in the Dooars tried to enforce a shutdown, a few hours before the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha announced a 36-hour relief.

An office of the Morcha, a constituent of the Joint Action Coordination Committee that had been trying to enforce the indefinite bandh, was ransacked by the anti-strike supporters in the afternoon. Later in the evening, a police team was attacked by a mob trying to defy prohibitory orders.

The Morcha, however, is determined to get permission to hold meetings and rallies in the plains to campaign for the inclusion of the mouzas of the Terai and the Dooars in the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA).

“The GTA is not the main issue. We are not stepping back one inch from our demand of statehood. I am blaming north Bengal development minister, Gautam Deb, for being responsible for what is happening now,” Morcha chief Bimal Gurung told reporters at Jaigaon, where he has been camping since Saturday night.

John Barla, the leader of the breakaway faction of the Akhil Bharatiya Adivasi Vikas Parishad, said relaxing the bandh did not mean that they were stepping away from the demand to include the 439 mouzas from the plains in the GTA.

“We demand that within these 36 hours the state government call us to the negotiating table. If not, we will be compelled to go in for an agitation from April 27 onwards. We are not concerned about what the Shyamal Sen committee recommends, we want our demand to be fulfilled,” said Barla, who was with Gurung.

Earlier in the day, there were reports of violence in the Oodlabari-Bagrakote area, 80km from Jalpaiguri town. Around 10.30am, alleged Morcha supporters first smashed a truck being loaded on the banks of the Ghish.

Three hours later, a group of about 80 bandh-supporters stopped a Maruti car near MES More at Bagrakote and thrashed its driver, Manik Roy, before setting it on fire. According to Anjana Sarkar, the wife of the owner of the car, the driver was returning after dropping off a patient at a Siliguri clinic.

As the news spread, anti-bandh supporters managed to grab the scooter of an alleged Morcha supporter whom they beat up. The rider fled and the mob took the scooter to the Bagrakote market and set it on fire. The number of bandh-protesters soon swelled to around 500 and they marched to Chuniyan Bustee, 2km away, and ransacked a Morcha office.

A large police force led by Mal subdivisional police officer, Arindam Sarkar, and subdivisional officer Debjani Bhattacharya went to the spot around 2.30pm, along with a fire engine. The crowd shouted slogans at the police against the violence.

Around 8.30pm, a team of 10 police personnel, was pelted with stones allegedly by the supporters of the Morcha from the Jharna Basti, 2km from Jaigaon.

Additional superintendent of police Anup Jaiswal said his force had to lathicharge to disperse the crowd. “They were defying Section 144,” he said. Earlier in the day, 2,226 Morcha supporters had been detained for violating Section 144. They were later released.

Prohibitory orders had been imposed in seven police station areas of Jalpaiguri last night.

Shops were shut today at Banarhat in protest against yesterday’s arson in which 15 shops were burnt.

The secretary of the Banarhat Byabsayee Samity, Bijoy Barua, addressed a public meeting there demanding the arrest of the culprits and compensation to those whose shops had been burnt.

“We have filed an FIR naming John Barla and six others and we demand their immediate arrest and also compensation for those who have lost their shops. We are relaxing the strike between 4pm and 5pm today. The markets will remain shut in Banarhat till the arrests are made and the compensation announced,” Barua said.

About 250 Morcha supporters, who had gathered at Kumani on the edge of the Kalimpong and Malbazar subdivisions were chased away by the police and were not allowed to enter Jalpaiguri district.

“There was some sporadic violence today, but by and large the situation is peaceful. The police are on high alert. If the bandh is relaxed from tomorrow, we might relax the prohibitory orders,” Jalpaiguri district magistrate Smaraki Mahapatra.

Deb, who set off for Darjeeling in the afternoon to attend a meeting there tomorrow, said in Siliguri that it was becoming more difficult to carry out development work in north Bengal than in Jungle Mahal. “Whenever we want to do some positive work there are strikes and counter-strikes. I am in constant touch with the chief minister who is closely monitoring the situation. I appeal to all to refrain from violence,” Deb said.(TT)