The central government had deployed 400 paramilitary personnel in restive Darjeeling in addition to the 1,000 security officers already there. “As many as 400 paramilitary personnel were sent to Darjeeling to help the state government on their request to maintain law and order,” an unidentified official at the Home Ministry told PTI on Thursday.
The Centre has also called a tripartite meeting on June 19 with the West Bengal government and the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha to resolve the crisis, reported The Hindu. However, the GJM leadership is believed to have told the government that they would participate in the talks only if their demand for a separate state of Gorkhaland was addressed. The Mamata Banerjee administration, too, has asked the Centre to postpone the meeting.
GJM General Secretary Roshan Giri met Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday and urged him for immediate central intervention to bring back peace in the hills. Giri was accompanied by BJP MP from Darjeeling SS Ahluwalia.
“We have apprised the Home Minister of the prevailing situation in Darjeeling and the Mamata Banerjee government’s attempts to impose Bengali in the district-based schools,” Giri said. On the same day, the police raided party chief Bimal Gurung’s office and found a huge cache of weapons. Fresh violence erupted in the region after the raids. “We strongly condemn the raids on our offices in Darjeeling. Whatever the police found in our offices were planted by the police,” Giri told The Hindu.
After the raids, Gurung is believed to have gone underground, reported The Indian Express. However, he sent a video message to his party workers and supporters. In the video, he is believed to have urged the people in the region to stand up against what he called “police excesses… a reign of terror” and said “the struggle for Gorkhaland will continue till the goal is reached”.
Meanwhile, the state chief minister blamed the failure on the part of the state’s intelligence agencies for the situation in Darjeeling. “They had designs to attack the ministers on June 8,” Banerjee told Hindustan Times. “The administration did not get information about the brewing tension at that time. It was an intelligence failure.”
The unrest in the region started with Banerjee announcing her decision to make Bengali language compulsory in all state-run schools. Though she had said that the hill districts would be exempted from the rule, the GJM started protesting which soon turned into the revival of their longstanding demand for a separate state of Gorkhaland.
“Bengali and Nepali, the languages spoken in Darjeeling, are in the Eight Schedule of the Constitution and hence, equal respect should be given to both,” Giri said. “We will not accept the imposition of Bengali in Darjeeling.”
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