Darjeeling: Gorkha Janmukti Morcha's 'defiance' may trigger crackdown today

Deep Gazmer &  Jaideep Mazumdar, TNN | Aug 14, 2013,  Darjeeling: The state may take strong action in the hills on Wednesday, the second day of the 'janatacurfew' which made Darjeeling look like a ghost town on Tuesday.

The scene was the same in Kalimpong, Kurseong and Mirik, as people confined themselves to their homes. After being closed for 10 days from August 3 because of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) strike, shops and commercial establishments remained shut on Tuesday as well.

The state government is seeing the 'janata curfew', called by the GJM, as an open defiance of the chief minister's 72-hour ultimatum to the party to call off its strike. The ultimatum expired on Monday and with normal life remaining disrupted, Wednesday may see the "strong administrative action" that the chief minister has promised.

Home secretary Basudeb Banerjee held an hour-long meeting with senior district officers including DM Puneet Yadav, SP Kunal Agarwal and Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) principal secretary R D Meena at Richmond Hill in the afternoon. Later, Banerjee, accompanied by Yadav, drove down to Siliguri and met North Bengal affairs minister Gautam Deb and food minister Jyotipriya Mullick. District administration sources said the current situation in the hills and GTA affairs were discussed.

In the evening, Banerjee reported the situation to chief minister Mamata Banerjee who is learnt to be extremely upset with the defiance of her ultimatum. She has made it clear that she sees no difference between a strike and a 'janata curfew'. The district administration has thus been asked to ensure that the abnormal situation does not continue. The SP also has to submit a report before Calcutta high court on Wednesday on the action taken to restore normality in the Hills. So, the district administration is left with a very small window to act.

The home secretary is learnt to have asked the police to keep up the pressure on the Morcha byarresting more of its leaders and activists. With 30 more being arrested from the district on Monday night, the total number of Morcha activists and leaders behind bars has crossed 200. Among those arrested on Monday night was leader Manoj Tamang from Gorubathan.

The home secretary also asked the district administration to prepare to take strong measures to deal with any further shutdowns. These measures could include not only arresting senior party leaders, but taking action against government employees not attending office and traders for keeping their establishments shut.

At Siliguri's meeting, it was decided that more North Bengal State Transport Corporation buses would be plied to Darjeeling, Kalimpong, Kurseong and Mirik on Wednesday. A couple of buses drove up from Siliguri to Darjeeling on Tuesday with police escorts, but they had no passengers. Deb and Mullick will oversee the distribution of food grains and other essentials at 11 places in the Hills on Wednesday and all ration shops will remain open on August 15.

Morcha chief Bimal Gurung, however, made another U-turn from Monday's indication that the party would participate in the GTA. Gurung, in a post on his timeline in a social networking site, wrote that "the GTA would be repealed at an appropriate time". He wrote that the decision to quit the GTA and render it non-functional was taken unanimously at Monday's all-party meeting. "The issue of the GTA and its chief executive is only for a limited period as our final goal is Gorkhaland," said Gurung in his post.

On Monday evening, GTA Sabha chairman and senior Morcha leader Bhupendra Pradhan had told mediapersons that he would write to GTA principal secretary to convene a meeting of the Sabha on August 16 to facilitate the election of a new chief executive that fell vacant after Bimal Gurung quit the post on July 30. This statement fuelled speculation that the Morcha was inclined to work within the GTA. But this impression drew strong protests from leaders of the other parties that had participated in Monday's meeting. 

Gurung's social networking page also attracted a number of angry comments. A cornered Gurung ultimately made his position on the GTA clear Tuesday afternoon. Gurung's reiteration of the Morcha's hard stance will not go down well with the state government and precludes any possibility of an understanding between the two sides.