www.kalimpong.info

From Darjeelingtimes.com

November 27,2007

Darjeeling, 26 November: GNLF has announced withdrawal of the indefinite shutdown in Darjeeling today, after the district administration was able to detained number of offenders involved in attacking Mr. K B Gurung, former councilor. Now, people of Darjeeling hills expect normal life from Wednesday.

In Kalimpong also 108 hours of bandh ended today called by GNLF. Normal life is also expected in Kurseong and Mirik after withdrawal of indefinite strike.

A symbolic silence peace rally was held in Darjeeling town, started from Chowrasta to Chowkbazaar, organised by the citizens of Darjeeling town, headed by Mr. B K Pradhan. Thousands of local inhabitants participated in the peace rally with pen and copy books on hands, placards quoting: “we want peace” etc. Citizens of Darjeeling, consisting of professionals, business men, etc. requested district administration, GJMM and GNLF to restore peace in Darjeeling hills and also encouraged local shopkeepers to be united and courageous against anti social elements at Marwari Sewa Samiti Bhawan, Darjeeling.

GJMM activists took out a candle light procession in the Darjeeling on monday evening demanding “justice”. They alleged that their leaders were wrongly being accused of the attack on the GNLF leader.

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Nov. 26: A hand-written poster in Nepali signed by “Students of Kurseong” appeared in the town’s taxi stand today, reminding political parties how bandhs had left the people disgusted.

“Allowing schools to remain open is not enough. Teachers and students who live far from the town are facing problems with transportation…. If the repeated bandhs do not stop, the students will take to the streets,” the poster read.

Subash Ghisingh’s GNLF, which has called an “indefinite bandh” in the hills since a khukuri attack on a leader on Friday, suddenly announced a six-hour breather today.

However, no vehicle was allowed to ply even during that period — 10am to 4pm.

Very few shops opened, though. “We came to know about the break after 10.30. We open our shops by 8.30am,” said a shop owner on Ladenla Road.

Most of the hill schools are now holding their annual exams. Hundreds of students will return home to cities across India when the residential schools shut down for winter vacation on December 1.

Parents of children whose schools closed down for the recess early because of the turmoil have got stuck in various towns over the past few days. Police have escorted many of them to Siliguri.

There has been a spate of strikes in the hills since Thursday. First, the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha called a 96-hour shutdown before calling it off on the evening of the first day itself. A 108-hour bandh called by the GNLF in Kalimpong ended today, but the general strike called by the party across the hills is still on.

Before GNLF supporters tore away the Kurseong poster, student leader P.K. Pradhan said: “The allegations in it are false. We have left schools out of the purview of the strike. We have also allowed vehicles carrying students to ply.”

Kalimpong students celebrated the end of the 108-hour bandh by going to school. “Attendance was 100 per cent,” said Prakash Pradhan, the director of Rockvale Academy.

A group of Darjeeling re-sidents has decided to hold a silent rally against bandhs tomorrow.

Ghisingh today said the Sixth Schedule status, over which the political drama is being played out, was “first-class and fittest” for the people of Darjeeling.

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Nov. 26: A hand-written poster in Nepali signed by “Students of Kurseong” appeared in the town’s motor stand today, reminding political parties how frequent bands in the hills were adversely affecting education.

“Allowing schools to remain open is not enough. Teachers and students who live far away from the town are having problems with transportation…If the repeated bandhs do not stop, then the students will take to the streets,” the poster at Kurseong Motor Stand read.

More than 15 high schools in Kurseong are currently holding their annual exams prior to the winter break.

There has been a spate of strikes in the hills since Thursday. First, the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha called a 96-hour shutdown before calling it off on the evening of the first day itself.

The GNLF, on the other hand, continued with a 108-hour bandh in Kalimpong subdivision that concluded today.

Since Saturday, a GNLF-sponsored indefinite strike has crippled normal life in the hills, though the party will relax it from tomorrow.

P.K. Pradhan, the president of the Kurseong unit of the GNLF-affiliated Gorkha National Students’ Front, said the poster was the “handiwork of the opposition”.

“The allegations in the poster are false as we have left schools out of the purview of the strike. We have also allowed vehicles carrying students to ply,” he said.

GNLF supporters later tore the poster.

Kurseong Motor Stand was the place where yesterday more than 200 parents got stranded with their children — all of them boarders from schools that have gone into their winter break — because of the GNLF strike.

The poster was not the only voice of protest heard in the hills. Around 150 women assembled at the chamber of the Kurseong subdivisional officer today, demanding security for schoolchildren.

In Kalimpong, however, educational institutions functioned normally for the first time since Thursday.

“The attendance in my school was 100 per cent,” said Capt. Prakash Pradhan, director, Rockvale Academy.

Statesman News Service
KURSEONG, Nov. 26: The GNLF in Kurseong relaxed the ongoing indefinite bandh from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. to allow people to buy essentials. The relaxation triggered a rush to the shops as people stockpiled food and essential items for the bandh period.

The GNLF also permitted a six hour hiatus to the ongoing bandh from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. (in Darjeeling) but most shop owners preferred to keep the shutters down for fear of the unexpected.

While the GNLF’s 108-hour Kalimpong bandh ended today and life groaned back to near normal in the evening, the bandh continues to remain tightly clamped on another hill town Mirik.

Unlike Darjeeling and Kurseong, there was no relaxation of the bandh in Mirik today.

In a major development today, about 200 women gheraoed the Kurseong SDO’s office demanding withdrawal of the ongoing GNLF bandh.

The SDO Mr Dibyendu Das met the agitators in the evening and assured that the administration would not permit anyone to apply force to observe the bandh. Neither would any one or party would be allowed to force people to oppose the bandh.

The Kurseong GNLF MLA Mrs Shanta Chettri today lodged a verbal complain to the Darjeeling Asp Rajesh Yadav against the Gorkha Jana Mukti Morcha stating that the GJMM was disturbing the GNLF bandh and that the police was providing security to the GJMM offices but not the GNLF offices.

Armed forces continue to remain deployed in Kurseong to maintain law and order.

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SILIGURI, NOV 26 (PTI)

The indefinite bandh called in the Darjeeling hills by the GNLF, which entered the fourth day today, was relaxed for six hours from 10:00 am to allow the people to buy food and essential commodities.

The people of the three hill subdivisions of Darjeeling, Kurseong and Kalimpong who have faced week-long and 10-days bandhs in the past since the eighties, have no idea when the shutdown, which has been called to demand the arrest of Gorkha Janamukti Morcha president Bimal Gurung would end, reports from the hills said.

Gurung’s arrest and that of twenty others have been demanded by the GNLF led by Subhas Ghising after a former party councillor K B Gurung was stabbled on November 23 during a gherao of Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council headquarters, Lalkuthi, by supporters of the Morcha.

In the past bandhs of long duration have been called by the GNLF to demand a separate state of Gorkhaland. Ghising has now dropped this demand for Sixth Schedule status for the three subdivisions administered by the DGHC.

Gurung, who was a former close aide of Ghising before parting with him and launching the GJM, has opposed Sixth Schedule status and in turn has revived the demand for Gorkhaland.

Main Road, Kalimpong
24th November, 2007
Photo by: Praful Rao

From http://savethehills.blogspot.com

A protest rally in Kurseong on Saturday.
(Vivek Singh)
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Kurseong/Darjeeling, Nov. 25: Praveen Choudary of Kakkarvitta, a border town in Nepal, was on his way to a boarding school in Darjeeling town to take his son home for the winter holidays.

However, GNLF supporters out to enforce the party-sponsored indefinite bandh in the hills stopped Choudary’s hired van at Dilaram, around 10km from Kurseong, this morning.

“I had heard that schoolchildren and their parents would be left out of the purview of the bandh. But the supporters stopped me and damaged the vehicle. Now I don’t know what to do,” said Choudary over phone from Dilaram.

Finally, in the afternoon, Choudary was told to go back to Siliguri, without his son, who studies in Mount Hermon School in Darjeeling.

Choudary was not alone: nearly 200 guardians who came from different places to take back their wards from schools in Kurseong and Mount Hermon — the only institution in Darjeeling where the winter break has already started — got stuck at Kurseong Motor Stand.

Police hired four vehicles to send around 40 of them (some with their wards) to Siliguri. A few others started walking downhill along Rohini Road. GNLF supporters said the others would not be allowed to leave till 6.30pm.

There are more than 15 residential schools in Kurseong — some of which are still holding their annual exams — with no less than 2,000 boarders.

Jayanta Pal, the principal of Victoria Boys’ School in Kurseong, said only six of the 200 or so boarders are yet to leave hostel. “We will wait till tomorrow for their guardians to come, before holding a meeting with the administration and GNLF leaders,” he said.

In Darjeeling, the president of the local branch committee of the GNLF, Deepak Gurung, replied in the negative when asked if educational institutions would be kept out of the purview of the general strike.

The unrest in the hills has also hit the tourism industry hard. “There is not a single tourist staying at our hotel today and bookings for December have been cancelled,” said a hotel-owner who did not want to be named.

The district administration has set up a special control room and residents can call up two numbers (0354-2252520 and 9733008001) if they face any inconvenience because of the shutdown.

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Darjeeling, Nov. 25: Uneasy calm prevails in the Darjeeling hills with the GNLF making it clear that it will not withdraw its indefinite strike called to protest against the attack on one of its leaders on Friday.

“Unless Bimal Gurung and 21 others involved in the assault on Kul Bahadur Gurung are arrested, we will carry on with our shutdown. However, the cinchona plantations and the tea gardens will be kept out of the bandh’s purview,” said Deepak Gurung, president, GNLF Darjeeling Branch Committee.

Raids are on and eight more people were arrested today apart from Shiva Rai and Bijay Lama, who were picked up in the past two days.

Expelled GNLF leader Bimal Gurung, who had floated the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha more than a month ago, has denied his party’s role in the attack. Instead, Binay Tamang, the press and publicity secretary of the Morcha, had claimed that the attack was a fallout of a feud within the GNLF. “We have been saying in various public meetings that the GNLF will attack its own leaders to malign our image and today’s (read Friday) incident has proved us right,” Tamang had said.

A five-member delegation led by K.S. Ramudamu, the vice-president of the Morcha, today met BJP leader L.K. Advani in Delhi. “We have told Advani that we refuse to accept the Sixth Schedule status for the hills and that only a separate state of Gorkhaland can fulfil our aspirations,” said Roshan Giri, the general secretary of the Morcha over phone from Delhi.

The party today withdrew its programme of ensuring the closure of all DGHC offices till December 7, the day the winter session of Parliament ends. “We took this decision keeping in mind the question of peace in the hills. However, the DGHC must stop issuing work orders without floating proper tenders. If they continue to do so, we might re-start our agitation,” said Bimal Gurung.

The stand-off between the two parties had been expected for quite sometime, especially after the bill on the Sixth Schedule was included in Parliament’s winter list of business. The Morcha is against the special status, a GNLF trump card, and had been trying to garner support for Gorkhaland.

On Friday, after the attack on Kul Bhadur trickled in and the GNLF and Morcha supporters got ready for a face-off, the administration imposed Section 144 in the tourist hub. The incident brought back memories of the Gorkhaland agitation of the eighties. The army was called in and has been kept on standby since then. Section 144 was lifted at 8pm today.

The CPRM, a member of the People’s Democratic Front, an anti-Subash Ghisingh coalition in the hills, has appealed to all parties to “end the politics of violence”.

Tamang alleged that the administration, which has stopped the Morcha from bringing out a rally in town (as Section 144 has been imposed), had permitted the GNLF to go-ahead a khukuri procession in Kurseong yesterday. “The administration must act impartially,” he said.

Statesman News Service

SILIGURI, Nov. 25: State urban development minister Mr Ashok Bhattacharya in Siliguri alleged today that 20 years of misrule by the Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF) was responsible for the recent unrest in the Darjeeling hills.

“Widespread corruption and the absence of developmental activities under the GNLF rule, has aggrieved the people and they are now out to express their anger,” he said while talking to reporters on the sidelines of a CPI-M meeting at Baghajatin Park in the town this morning. Accepting the fact that as an Opposition party, the CPI-M failed to lend voice to the grievances of the hill people, Mr Bhattacharya said, the failure on CPI-M’s part has given a chance to ‘separatists elements’ to mislead the common people.

Criticising the GNLF further on the latest hill feud, the urban development minister said that after the granting of the Sixth Schedule status for Darjeeling, Mr Subash Ghising’s party did not inform the people regarding the benefits that the new arrangement would bring. “This lack of information has confused the people and they are now getting mislead by the separatists who are out to destroy peace,” he said.

Mr Bhattacharya said the CPI-M wants the Parliament to immediately clear Darjeeling’s Sixth Schedule Bill and elections be held in the hills at the earliest. “We are hopeful that once the election for the new hill council is held, Darjeeling would come back to normalcy, as the people want development and answers to their routine troubles,” he said.