All party meeting by pro-Gorkhaland parties today

MP | 2017-06-28 | Darjeeling, West Bengal : The all-party meeting of pro-Gorkhaland forces will take place in Kalimpong on Thursday at 1 pm. With the sate adopting a wait and watch strategy and the Centre yet to intervene to defuse the ongoing crisis, all eyes are fixed on the Kalimpong meeting.

A core committee meeting of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha in Darjeeling on Wednesday decided that the meeting would be held in Kalimpong. The meeting will take place at Hotel Tress located on Primpam Road in Kalimpong.

When questioned on whether the GJM president Bimal Gurung will attend Thursday's meeting, Tilak Chandra Roka, coordinator, stated: "It is unlikely that Bimal Gurung will attend it." Fourteen political and apolitical organisations will take part in the Kalimpong meeting.

Incidentally, majority of the parties have been demanding Gurung's presence in the meeting. "Gurung is the person who takes the final stand in the GJM party. The GJM is the largest party with a public mandate. It is apt that he attends so that the decision can be finalised," stated Govind Chettri, spokesperson Communist party of Revolutionary Marxists.

The Gorkha National Liberation Front wants concrete decision and collective programmes to immerge from the Kalimpong meeting. "We want a joint committee to be set up. This committee with intellectuals at the helm will spear head the Gorkhaland movement. If the meeting fails to thrash out concrete decisions and just decides yet another date for the next meet, then we will launch our own programme for Gorkhalkand, stated a GNLF leader. Earlier, all party meetings were held on June 13 and June 20.

Wednesday saw GJM central committee members R B Bhujel and Samuel Gurung from Kalimpong picked up by the police while going to Patleybash to attend the GJM core committee meeting. When the vehicle they were travelling in reached the police town outpost at Singamari, it was stopped by the police and the two leaders were whisked away to the Darjeeling Sadar police station.

The GJM activists gheraoed the Darjeeling Sadar police station shouting slogans, demanding the release of the two. Finally, after one and half hours they were released.

The Army that had been deployed at Darjeeling and Kalimpong has been withdrawn. S S Birdi, PRO, Eastern Command stated: "The Army can be deployed again if the state thinks it's necessary and sends a requisition."

In the wee hours of the morning, the office of the Executive Engineer, Darjeeling Engineering division, GTA located at Sailabash in Darjeeling was torched by alleged GJM supporters. Important files and documents were charred in the fire. The panchayat office at Rajbari on the outskirts of the town was also torched. In Kalimpong, the office and silk rearing house of the Sericulture department were torched.

Rallies were taken out in Darjeeling town on Wednesday where kids from the age group of 3-13 years, some dressed in traditional clothes, others bare bodied and in symbolic fetters, took to the streets in support of Gorkhaland.

Meanwhile, students from universities including Calcutta University, Burdwan University, Kalyani University and Rabindra Bharati University wrote to the Union Home minister Rajnath Singh stating that the unrest in the Hills is destructive and violation of human rights.