Gurung chargesheeted... BINAY NAME OMITTED

VIVEK CHHETRI, TT, DARJEELING, JUNE 8 : The CID filed a chargesheet in a court here on Monday, naming 72 people, including Gorkha leaders Bimal Gurung and Roshan Giri, for rioting while Mamata Banerjee was holding a cabinet meeting in Darjeeling on June 8 last year.

However, no evidence was found against Binay Tamang, the present president of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha and the chief of the GTA, and six others.

A number of Morcha leaders who have aligned themselves with Tamang after his fallout with Gurung are named in the chargesheet.

Assistant public prosecutor Pankaj Prasad said: "The CID has filed a chargesheet before the chief judicial magistrate naming 72 people, including Bimal Gurung, Roshan Giri, Asha Gurung, Prakash Gurung and others." Asha is Bimal Gurung's wife.

They all have been booked for attempt to murder, rioting, assault on public support and destruction of government properties among others.

Process has also started for attaching the properties of 45 accused, who are currently on the run. The rest are either in jail or out on bail, said Prasad.

The cabinet meeting was being held at Raj Bhavan in Darjeeling for the first time since December 1975. Violence had erupted barely 100m away, bringing life to a grind- Alleged agitators during the violence in Darjeeling on June 8, 2017 ing halt in the town. It snowballed into a 104-day shutdown in the hills, severely affecting tea industry, tourism and educational sector, which are the backbone of the hill economy.

Within a week of the incident, a CID probe was ordered.

The chargesheet is not final and the CID can submit an additional chargesheet as the investigation is still on, said a source.

"The protesters had assembled with stones, bricks, lathi, rod, sword, bottles catapult, petrol bomb, kerosene container and other lethal weapons at Bhanu Bhavan," the chargesheet says.

It also mentioned in detail how Gurung directed the supporters to march forward to attack Raj Bhavan to "disrupt the ongoing cabinet meeting and assault the Hon'ble CM, WB and other ministers".

Gurung led Morcha was demanding a written assurance that teaching of Bengali language would not be compulsory in the hills, even though the government had not issued any written order or notification for language implementation.

During the violence, a number of police personnel had been injured and public property was torched and vandalised.

Following the incident, Bhanu Bhavan, which is now named Gorkha Bhavan and used to house the GTA Sabha along with a few other departments, was sealed.

Prasad said: "During the investigation, no evidence were found against seven persons." The seven are Binay Tamang, Jyoti Kumar Rai, Mandip Sharma, Amod Mukhia, John Rai, Deoraj Dewan and Barun Bhujel.