Strike in Dooars on April 22 to thwart meet

Siliguri/Jalpaiguri, April 19: The Akhil Bharatiya Adivasi Vikas Parishad and a host of other outfits have called a 12-hour strike in the Dooars on April 22 to thwart a meeting in Nagrakata on that day by a forum of organisations seeking the inclusion of the plains in the administrative set-up for the Darjeeling hills.

The strike was announced today. The Parishad-led Dooars Terai Co-ordination Committee also wrote to the Jalpaiguri district magistrate, requesting her not to grant permission to its rivals to hold the public meeting.

The Nagrakata event will be held under the banner of the Joint Action Co-ordination Committee and addressed by Gorkha Janmukti Morcha president Bimal Gurung.

The decision to call the strike was taken at a meeting attended by Rajesh Lakra, the general secretary of the Terai Dooars regional unit of the Parishad, and leaders of other constituents of the Dooars Terai Co-ordination Committee.

“We sent a letter to the Jalpaiguri district magistrate today, saying people in the Dooars and Terai are against the inclusion of the region in the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration. Any attempt to hold a meeting in the Dooars will lead to law and order problems,” said Lakra.

He said if the DM gave permission to hold the Nagrakata meeting, people would come down to the streets and “put up resistance”.

“The region might witness a spontaneous outburst of the people’s anger against the meeting. We want to prevent any such law and order problem,” said Lakra.

Asked about the letter to the DM, dissident Parishad leader John Barla, who had joined hands with the Morcha, said: “We had announced the meeting earlier this month. We had already deferred a 48-hour strike on the request of the state government which assured us that permission would be given to organise other forms of agitation. The meeting will be held in Nagrakata as scheduled and Morcha president Bimal Gurung will be the principal speaker.”

Barla, who is also the convener of the Joint Action Co-ordination Committee, said the plains would witness a tribal movement if permission was not granted for the meeting.(TT)