Darjeeling unrest: It's business as usual in Hills

TNN | Oct 15, 2017, DARJEELING: The Hills bounced back hours after the pre-dawn encounter between Bimal Gurung's armed group and the state police on Friday sending out clear signals that people don't want the bandh days to return.

Tourists loitered in the Mall area on Saturday morning and business was as usual at the town's nerve centre -Mall Road and Chowrasta -while offices and tea gardens recorded usual attendance. "There is no disruption. Shops are open, vehicles are plying as usual," said Mahesh Chhetri, a shopkeeper at Chowrasta. Keeping with the public mood some posters from the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha in Nepali, pasted at Kalimpong's Dumbar Chawk, read: "Don't put a terrorist tag on patriotic Gorkhas. We won't allow anyone to break peace in the Hills and turn it into Kashmir." This view is gaining grounds in the Hills that might go against Gurung and his GLP despite the sentiments for separate statehood.

Amid the activities all around, there was a palpable tension among the Hills people who huddled in groups and discussed about similar disruptions if the fugitive GJM president Bimal Gurung makes yet another bid to make a come back as he had announced in an audio message setting a deadline on October 30. The apprehension was fuelled by the huge police presence in the area with police patrols moving around Singmari, Patlebas and downhill towards Tukvar, 16km from Darjeeling town. Police on Saturday arrested three people from Kalimpong district and recovered 60 electronic detonators and "power gel" used in RDX from the Pedong forests. "We were taken aback with the huge cache of arms recovered from the encounter site.I can only say that Gorkhas have always fought for the country. They have never taken the help of any insurgent group," said senior citizen Suman Rai.

A day after throwing his weight behind Bimal Gurung, BJP state president Dilip Ghosh on Saturday trained guns at the Mamata Banerjee government for sending inadequate police troops to the encounter site packed with inexperienced people. "I wonder how a government could send people like Amitava Malik without proper protection and training," Ghosh said, drawing sneers from state tourism minister Gautam Deb. "Is the BJP state president a retired Army lieutenant with huge experience on combat training? How did he come to know that the police force didn't have proper training?" the Trinamool minister said.

Most of the people to whom TOI talked to were not in favour of taking to arms for Gorkhaland. "I don't think we need arms to raise the demand for separate state that is provided under the Constitution. Let the Centre and the state pave the way for talks and help us put forth our arguments," said Jan Andolan Party president Harka Bahadur Chhetri. The encounter near the Bengal-Sikkim border on Friday, however, won't come in the way of the Kolkata talks on Monday. "The meeting of the Hills parties with the CM at Nabanna is on schedule," a state official said.