Fri. Mar 29th, 2024

The GJM party has been demonstrating protest in the hills for a few days now. The protest began, as West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced that Bengali should be made a compulsory subject for all. The protest has gained momentum as the GJM party is holding shut down in Darjeeling and demanding for a new state for the Gorkhas. 

GNLF the biggest rival of GJM, withdrew its alliance from ruling party and has joined hands with GJM taking active part in the protest. Though all the opposition parties alleged Banaerjee to be responsible for the unrest, non of them are supporting the demand for a separate Gorkhaland.

To control the situation in Darjeeling seven CRPF forces has been deployed in the region, out of which 2 are all women force. Mamata has also asked for a special audit of the funds allocated to the GTA.

Violence escalated in Darjeeling on Thursday as raids were conducted on the residence of GJM Chief Bimal Gurung. The police has claimed that during the raid they seized arms and huge amounts of money from Gurung’s residence.

This act of the Banerjee government has further triggered the anger of the GJM supports. Binoy Tamang, assistant general secretary of the Morcha denied the fact of arms being found at the residence of Bimal. He said that the police only found few bows and couple of dozen of arrows, few rusted spades, a rusted axe and sickle, and a couple of boxes of fire crackers. He further said that these tools could be found in any predominantly tribal residing in the hills.

Binoy said that, “We are deeply hurt that the Bengal government is portraying our traditional equipment as weapons. We strongly feel that this is a blatant misrepresentation and misinterpretation of our cultural and traditional tools, and this is the reason why we need Gorkhaland.”

Condemning the raids GJM issued an statement saying that “Today’s raid is another intimidation tactic used by the Bengal government to put fears among our supporters, and suppress the Gorkhaland movement that has gained widespread currency in the hill region.”

Reacting to all the statements of GJM Mamata Banerjee said that, any attempt to disturb peace in the region would be dealt with and government will take actions according to the law.

SS Ahluwalia, BJP MP from Darjeeling commented that, such actions of Banerjee is only firing up the issue more. He suggested that the government should immediately stop these police actions and make way to peaceful talks with GJM.