Hills face insurgency threats amid BJP-Trinamool turf war ...Control of the hills has become a bone of contention for both the parties in power at Centre and state.

Madhuparna Das, ET, Oct 18, 2017, KOLKATA: Darjeeling seems to be slowly and steadily slipping into insurgency as the fight for control of the hills intensifies between the Trinamool Congress and BJP. The killing of a police officer and the subsequent haul of a huge cache of arms and ammunition –– allegedly from the jungle hideout of GJM chief Bimal Gurung’s armed cadres –– does not bode well for the peace and security of this sensitive region.

Control of the hills has become a bone of contention for both the parties in power at Centre and state. While BJP holds Mamata Banerjee responsible for pushing Darjeeling hills into the current mess, Banerjee blames BJP for “hatching a conspiracy to destabilise the peace process and divide Bengal”. In the midst of this slugfest, peace seems to be the casualty for the hill people.

Against the backdrop of this political tug-of-war, Bimal Gurung is building a group of insurgents with fresh recruits from the hills and north eastern states and creating a strong smuggling nexus to access sophisticated arms from across the border.

Banerjee perhaps miscalculated Gurung’s strength and his support base. It appears that the ruling party had taken only the town areas like Darjeeling, Kalimpong, Kuseong and Mirik into consideration, but missed out the tea gardens, villages and hill bustees located in the remote and difficult terrains of the Darjeeling forest areas. These are the areas where Gurung’s support base still thrives and fear psychosis still plays a big role here. The newly created insurgency in Darjeeling has opened a new market for underground arms, ammunition and explosives.

According to an Intelligence report, Gurung and his associates have been extorting money from tea garden owners and other businessmen in the locality to build their own militia. The Gorkha Liberation Police, a force raised by Gurung during the Gorkhaland movement in 2006-08, has also been revived.