Darjelling Burns

Darj burns after police firing in Jalpaiguri claims 3 GJM activists

INDEFINITE STRIKE CALLED IN THE HILLS, POSTERING EXTENDS BANDH TO NH31A AS WELL

SNOD TANKER SET ALIGHT AT TAR-KHOLA

source;sikkimnow

GANGTOK, 08 Feb: The situation in Darjeeling hills collapsed to anarchy today as Gorkha Janmukti Morcha activists took to the streets torching West Bengal government property and bringing the hill district to a standstill. This, in a spontaneous reaction to news of police firing on a GJM procession near the Sipshu Tea Estate at Nagrakata in Jalpaiguri district which has now claimed three lives.
Initially, two GJM members, one of them a 24 year old lady from Kalimpong, had been killed in the police firing. Later in the day, a third person succumbed to injuries sustained in the police action. In the melee which visited this town on the Darjeeling-Jalpaiguri border, around 10 CRPF personnel are also reported to have been injured. An indefinite bandh has been called in the Darjeeling hills, and posters pasted along the highway announce that this time, traffic from Sikkim will also be blocked.
As news spread of the police firing and the casualties, violence broke out in the Darjeeling Hills and an immediate chakka-jam was called shortly after noon. The bandh was eventually lifted at around 4 p.m. to allow people stranded all over the hills to complete their journeys. The GJM has now called an indefinite bandh from Wednesday onwards.
While vehicular traffic to and from Sikkim on National Highway 31A [in parts which run through Darjeeling] is usually kept out of the purview of these bandhs, this time, GJM picketers along the highway have been pasting posters on all Sikkim-bound vehicles that this time, even Sikkim vehicles will not be allowed on the highway.
Those who travelled on the highway after the bandh was lifted today inform that while tension was not palpable, what was worrying was that there was no sign of either West Bengal police or paramilitary forces on the highway.
Meanwhile, news coming in from Darjeeling informs that following the police firing and deaths, arson broke out in the hills. The tourism office on the Mall in Darjeeling was set ablaze as was the forest dak bungalow at Jaldhaka in the Dooars. A police vehicle was also set alight in Darjeeling it is informed. Forest bungalows and sub-divisional offices were also torched in the Kalimpong sub-division.
Also in Kalimpong today, two North Bengal State Transport Corporation buses were set alight at the motor-stand. Also caught in the mob attack in Kalimpong was an SNT bus, the windshield of which was smashed. No one was however injured in the incident and the vehicle made it back to Sikkim when the bandh was lifted.
At Tar-Khola, the notorious West Bengal settlement ahead of Rangpo, however, a private petrol tanker [belonging to SNOD, Gangtok] headed for Siliguri from Rangpo was set alight. No one was injured and fire-fighters from Rangpo put out the flame, it is learnt.
The situation in the neighbouring Hills remains tense.