Hills on edge: 3 blasts in a day claim life, shatter calm

TNN | Aug 20, 2017, DARJEELING: Three blasts in the Hills, including the first-ever remote-controlled IED blast in the region, in 24 hours, claimed one life and pushed Darjeeling over the precipice into an apparently fresh cycle of violence and blood-letting.

A civic volunteer died and three policemen were seriously injured in a grenade attack on the Kalimpong police station around 9.30pm on Saturday, said ADG (North Bengal), S N Gupta. The victim was identified as R Raut, 31. No one was arrested till reports last came in.

The first attack of the day, which happened just after midnight on Friday, did not result in any casualty, but shattered the uneasy calm in the Hills.

It was a powerful IED blast, triggered by a remote-controlled device, in the heart of Darjeeling. It left a cratered road and pock-marked shop shutters, and left in its wake a trail of unanswered questions.

The next blast occurred around 9pm on Saturday at Fade village near Badamtam in the Runglee Rungliot police station area.

Local residents alerted police after hearing a loud explosion. Darjeeling SP Akhilesh Chaturvedi said: "We have unconfirmed news from locals and are sending a team to verify it."

No one claimed responsibility, but cops slapped cases against three senior Gorkha Janmukti Morcha leaders, including GJM chief Bimal Gurung, under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act for waging war against the state.

"The first blast seems to have been targeted at policemen on night patrol," Chaturvedi said.

"It was a high-intensity blast caused by an IED with an impact range of 40 metres," a home department official said after a high-level meeting at the state secretariat presided over by director-general of police Surajit Kar Purakayastha.

"A special CID team, along with forensic experts, has left for Darjeeling," additional director-general (law and order) Anuj Sharma said at Nabanna. The GJM, however, denied responsibility. GJM president Gurung demanded a high-level probe by a committee comprising officials of the NIA, a central government agency, under the "supervision of the Supreme Court".

The blast occurred at 12.10am at Chowkbazar, barely 50 metres from the Sadar police station in the heart of Darjeeling town, and was powerful enough to pierce iron shop shutters 40 metres away and shatter window panes of houses more than 100 metres away, besides leaving a deep crater in the metalled road and pieces of cast iron and wiring strewn around the tell-tale marks of gunpowder.

Elina Tamang, a resident of Sivagram, around 100 metres downhill from the blast spot, woke up to find window panes of her home shattered. "We initially thought miscreants had thrown stones but later found splinters scattered all around. We have never seen such a blast in Darjeeling," she said.

Aruna Rai, a staffer at a restaurant opposite the old supermarket, heard a deafening sound at 12.10am and then felt a tremor. "We sleep on the first floor. I could feel the building shaking and, for a moment, thought it was an earthquake. I rushed downstairs and found people on the street saying a bomb had just gone off," she recounted.

Police officials claimed to have got definite inputs based on which they lodged the FIR against Gurung and two of his GJM colleagues, Prakash Gurung and Prabin Subba. "We have some technical and other inputs. We suspect that these three persons were behind the blast but some others could also have been involved," the Darjeeling SP said.

Officials tried to gauge the nature of the blast by calculating the distance splinters flew and the holes they created on iron shutters. "Gelatin powder was stolen from an NHPC site at Neji Basti in Pul Bazar barely a month ago. It could have been used in the blast. Forensic teams will be able to confirm these suspicions," a senior official said. "When a cast iron piece strikes a metal sheet, it creates stress on the surface. This stress and the heat generated during the impact created holes in the iron shutters. The intensity of the blast can also be gauged by calculating these factors," he added.

Darjeeling residents feel the Hills region's first IED blast could abort any attempt for a peaceful solution to the ongoing impasse and queer the pitch for a dialogue. "The blast has been engineered to distract attention from the Gorkhaland agitation and destroy the ambience necessary for talks," GJM leader Swaraj Thapa said. GJM general secretary Roshan Giri said the party would run a "parallel investigation" into the blast.