On Thursday, police seized huge cache of arms during a raid on premises of Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) chief Bimal Gurung in Darjeeling. Some party activists are also arrested.
It is to be noted that the party has called for an indefinite strike after the police action. Darjeeling to witness violence on Thursday, with the GJM’s youth wing Gorkha Janmukti Yuva Morcha (GJYM) announcing a rally in the town against police lathi charge and the arrest of its members. A rally is being organised at Kalimpong in protest against the police action.
As per the police, a huge supply of arms and ammunitions such as bow and arrows, knives, axes and cartridges has been recovered from Gurung’s premises.
GJM Central Committee has decided to call an indefinite strike from Thursday to protest police action.
“Some of the premises of Gurung and other GJM activists were raided. We conducted the raids on the basis of concrete information. The raids are still on. We have arrested a few GJM activists,” a senior police said.
The police, however, denied that Gurung’s residence had been raided.
“The state government is indulging in politics of witch-hunting. The police and the state government are provoking us to call an indefinite strike in the hills. We will inform the Centre about the atrocities of the state government. We have called an indefinite shutdown in hills from today,” GJM general secretary Roshan Giri said.
The raids came on the fourth day of the GJM-sponsored indefinite strike in government and GTA offices in the hills. Notably, Darjeeling has been under turmoil as violence erupted last week near Bhanu Bhavan where the GJM supporters were holding a rally to demand a separate state of Gorkhaland and a written assurance from the Mamata Banerjee government that it won’t ‘impose’ Bengali in the north Bengal hills and that “Bengali could be learnt as a fourth language”.
The development also came a day after Gurung said that the agitation for a separate Gorkhaland would go on till it was achieved. He had asked tourists to avoid visiting Darjeeling.
