The Sikkim Police have filed a First Information Report against a West Bengal police team for shooting dead a Gorkha Janmukti Morcha supporter on Friday, The Indian Express reported on Monday. The Bengal police team chased a vehicle carrying members of the political party when they were returning from a meeting, the English daily quoted the FIR.
At Long Khola, a convoy of police personnel headed by Kalimpong Superintendent of Police Ajit Singh Yadav killed Dawa Tshering Bhutia, 34, of Pedong, in Kalimpong district of West Bengal. Yadav declined to comment, the report said. The Sikkim Police have registered a murder case.
The West Bengal Police had carried out raids at several areas along the Sikkim-West Bengal border following reports that Gorkha Janmukti Morcha Chief Bimal Gurung was planning on conducting a meeting there. The Criminal Investigation Department had issued a lookout notice for Gurung and the party’s General Secretary Roshan Giri on Friday. The lookout notice was issued against him for his alleged involvement in a bomb blast at Kalimpong police station on August 20. A civic volunteer was killed in the explosion.
Tensions have been on the rise between the two states since Sikkim Chief Minister Pawan Chamling wrote to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh saying formation of Gorkhaland will provide justice to the “patriotism” of the Indian Gorkhas.
Two Gorkha Janmukti Morcha leaders arrested
Meanwhile, the West Bengal Police arrested two leaders of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha from Jaigaon in Alipurduar district, near the West Bengal-Bhutan border, on Sunday afternoon, PTI reported.
The party’s organising secretary in the Dooars region, Rohit Thapa, and another person were charged for allegedly inciting violence and unrest in north West Bengal. Thapa will be taken to court Monday, Superintendent of Police Avaru Rabindranath told IANS.
Darjeeling has faced violence since June when West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced her decision to make Bengali compulsory in state-run schools. Although Banerjee had said that Hill districts would be exempted from the rule, the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha began an agitation that soon turned into a revival of the demand for a separate state of Gorkhaland.
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