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GORKHA JANMUKTI MORCHA YOUTH VOICE IN CHOWRASTA

GORKHALAND SONG IN SILIGURI MASS RALLY

GORKHA JANMUKTI MORCHA ROCKS SILIGURI

More than 350000 people from the darjeeling hills, Duars and siliguri participated in the historic 7th May Public meeting at siliguri

NEWS FROM HIMALAYA DARPAN ON GORKHALAND MOVEMENT

End Asok-Bimal duel, says Trinamul

SILIGURI, May 9: The Trinamul Congress has demanded an end to the continuing verbal duel between the state urban development minister, Mr Asok Bhattacharya and the Gorkha Jan Mukti Morcha chief Mr Bimal Gurung. “This verbosity has been vitiating the already emotionally charged atmosphere both in the Darjeeling Hills and the plains,” the party said.Mr Partha Chatterjee, the leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly and Trinamul Congress leader, said that when all the parties were expected to exercise restraint in view of the deteriorating condition in the Hills, Mr Bhattacharya and Mr Gurung were indulging in a ridiculous verbosity. “The state government, on one hand, is calling the GJMM for dialogue and Mr Asok Bhattacharya is, on the other hand, queering the pitch by calling the GJMM leaders anti-national terrorists. This must end,” Mr Chatterjee said. (The Statesman)

Six arrested for attack on GJMM

Statesman News Service SILIGURI, May 9: The police in Siliguri have arrested six youths in connection with the 2 May attack on Gorkha Jan Mukti Morcha supporters at Hospital More in Siliguri. DYFI activists were allegedly involved in the incident. The arrests were made through the past three days. One of the six accused was arrested on 6 May, another four the very next day and the sixth accused was nabbed last night. “We could identify the six accused from the newspaper photographs and news channel footages. We hope to book a few more assailants very soon,” Mr Rajesh Yadav, ASP, Siliguri said. The ASP furter informed that the political affiliations of the arrested youths, if any, were being investigated. Though the police did not disclose the names of the arrested individuals, it was learnt that the youths were lifted from the slums of Bagrakote, Tikiapara, Matangini Colony. It may be mentioned that the GJMM in its Siliguri rally on 7 May, had issued a seven-day deadline for the arrest of the assailants of its supporters.

Soft on talks, tough on CM

Siliguri, May 9: The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha is open to the idea of a dialogue with the chief minister but will be happy if the Centre was involved in the process.
“We do not mind a one-to-one with him, although what we actually want is a tripartite meeting with the state and Central governments,” said Binay Tamang, the media and publicity secretary of the Morcha.
The Morcha leader, however, added that the chief minister expressing his desire to the media to sit with us alone was not enough. “He has to write to us officially.”
In Calcutta, Bhattacharjee confirmed that he has “got a letter from those presently agitating in the hills”.
“Let me first discuss it with my ministers and then I will talk about it. We don’t want to make any distinction between the hills and the plains. We want peace to prevail in Darjeeling,” Bhattacharjee told journalists. Last week, he had told a private news channel that the people of the hills should come forward with their demands.
Alleging a communication gap within the government, Tamang said at the very beginning of the Morcha agitation, the party had sent communiqués to the state and central governments and also the chief minister with three demands.
The first two, the removal of Subash Ghisingh as caretaker administrator of the DGHC and the scrapping of the bill conferring Sixth Schedule status on the hills, were met. The third was the demand for Gorkhaland.
“Since then many things have happened in the hills and plains…Despite that, the chief minister recently said he was not aware of our demands,” he added.
In Kalimpong, the Morcha accused the CPM of giving a “criminal colour” to a “democratic movement”. Ridiculing the attempt to link party secretary Roshan Giri to explosives seized in Malaguri, Harka Bahadur Chhetri, a central committee member of the Morcha, said: “Had there been any truth in the allegation, they wouldn’t have waited so long to mention the names. Anybody can see through their tactics.” (The Telegraph)

Arrest retort to deadline- Cops pick up six based on video footage, Morcha tags them scapegoats

Siliguri, May 9: Police have picked up six persons for their alleged involvement in the attacks on Gorkha Janmuki Morcha supporters here last week, but Bimal Gurung’s party has tagged the arrests an “eyewash”.
The police, however, refused to divulge the political affiliation of the arrested youths. “We arrested them on the basis of video footage and photographs of the incidents that we procured from various sources,” said Rahul Srivastava, the superintendent of police, Darjeeling.
Gurung, the Morcha president, had set a deadline of seven days for the Darjeeling district administration within which the accused — three CPM leaders were named in an FIR — were to be arrested failing which 10,000 party supporters would come down to Siliguri for a protest meet.
Jibitesh Sarkar, a senior district leader and member of the CPM state committee, Mukul Sengupta, a councillor of the Siliguri Municipal Corporation and Shankar Ghosh, the DYFI district secretary, were, according to the Morcha, behind the assaults that took place on May 2.
“Balaram Choudhury, Sanjoy Mondal, Shankar Routh, Kali Roy and Tapash Majumdar were arrested last night, while Samir Pal was picked up this morning. They were all identified for their involvement in the scuffle with the Morcha supporters,” another police officer said. “The arrested youths are residents of Lichubagan, Tikiapara, Subashpally and Matangini Colony.”
Morcha media and publicity secretary Binay Tamang said those arrested have been made scapegoats. “It is an eyewash. The real culprits have not been touched despite our pinpointing them in the FIRs. If no action is taken against the CPM leaders within the stipulated time, we will continue with our agitation plan.”
Morcha supporters had come down to Siliguri on May 1 and 2 for a hunger strike to demand permission to hold meetings here. Two hundred and seventy four of them courted arrest in batches on the first day by entering the court premises.
When they repeated the attempts on the second day, shouting anti-CPM slogans, it triggered mob violence and at least 10 Morcha supporters, including women, were beaten up. After the incident, the Morcha lodged complaints against Sarkar, Sengupta and Ghosh.
Ghosh has denied that the six arrested youths are party members. “We made inquiries and found that none of them are members of any of our units.” (The Telegraph)