GTA principal secretary meets hunger-strikers in Kurseong

SNS, KURSEONG 29 MAY: The Gorkhaland Territorial Administration, (GTA), Principal Secretary, Mr RD Meena today visited Kurseong and met the hunger-strikers to take stock of the situation.

The trend to visit and meet hunger-strikers is on by the GTA senior officials in Kurseong. Yesterday, the GTA and the Gorkha Jan Mukti Morcha (GJMM) chief, Mr Bimal Gurung met hunger-strikers in Kurseong and enquired about their health. And following the same trend, today, the GTA executive member and the GJMM general secretary Mr Roshan Giri too, later followed by the GTA principal secretary Mr RD Meena visited the premises of Kurseong where the hunger-strike is underway.

During his Kurseong visit, Mr Meena shied away from the media. However, he inquired about the well-being of the hunger-strikers with the Kurseong SDO, Mr RK Jha and Mr Giri.  In the meantime, Mr Giri informed their demands to Mr Meena.

Talking to reporters, Mr Giri said that the government is still not honouring the GTA agreement. We have been given GTA but it is yet to be become full-fledged as there are several subjects which are yet to be transferred fully to the GTA. Besides, there is the issue of police atrocities to our GTA members, as well as the 396 mouzas of Terai & Dooars which are not included in the GTA, so far.

Mr Giri further added that not only this, the court cases which were filed against us during the four year Gorkhaland agitation period is yet to be dropped. He said that we had also highlighted the issues of court cases in the last GTA review meeting held in the last week of the December 2012 in New Delhi. During the period, the meeting had taken a resolution for the withdrawal of all court cases, except murder cases but even after a gap of around six months, no concrete steps have been taken by the government for the withdrawal of court cases.

He further said that even then, we have repeatedly discussed all these matters with the state CM Miss Mamata Banerjee in Kolkata and even during her Darjeeling visit but surprisingly, nothing has been done about the issue in reality, so far.

Notably, since 26 May, like in other three places of Darjeeling hills, in Kurseong too, the GTA members are on a fast-unto-death to press for the demands.