Darjeeling Indoor Stir only for Monday

Darjeeling : The Gorkhaland Joint Action Committee (GJAC) on Sunday announced limiting its "Gharer Bhitore Janata" (People Remaining Indoor) movement to only one day on August 19, reverting its August 16 decision of five days. The GJAC, which was formed in the last meeting and was empowered to carry on the statehood movement, in its all party meeting at Singhmari here on Sunday reverted its decision and restricted to only one day "Gharer Bhitore Janata" stir which urges the hill people to remain indoor on Monday. The GJAC before holding its first meeting received a setback after the All India Gorkha League (AIGL) severed link with the umbrella unit, and another outfit Communist Party of Revolutionary Marxist said they were not in favour of continuing the strike.

GJAC's spokesman Raju Pradhan, who is also a senior Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) leader, said they would launch " Rastai Janata" stir that would bring out people to the streets to take out rallies and processions from Aug 20 onwards for statehood. The all party meeting of the hill based political parties, however, decided to continue the movement for statehood. Meanwhile, crackdown on the GJM activists continued with 50 more arrests made since midnight last night, taking the total apprehensions to around 500. Ten companies of the para-military forces are conducting route march in all vulnerable areas to keep life safe and normal. So far 15 companies of para-military forces have been deployed in the past fortnight. North Bengal Development minister Gautam Deb Sunday visited Kalimpong to chair a meeting of the Lepcha Welfare Committee and told the gathering that the government was doing its best for development of the hill people.

The GJM, meanwhile, decided that all its three MLAs from the Darjeeling Hills would sit in the Opposition benches in the West Bengal Assembly. The MLAs Trilok Dewan, Rohit Sharma and Harkha Bahadur Chhetri “will now sit with the opposition bench in the assembly," president Bimal Gurung said. However, the West Bengal assembly secretariat said it had not received any such letter so far.