Indefinite strike in Darjeeling begins, hills in the grip of uncertainty

Strike supporters ransacked BDO office and tried to set it on fire at Bijanbari. Firemen rushed to the scene and doused the blaze.

Police  detained at least 10 persons in connection with the incident and later arrested three of them.

GJM supporters also forcibly locked a Panchayat office at Sukna. A heavy police force went there and unlocked it.

A huge security arrangement has been made to cope with any situation that may come up with the hill party taking up its next course of action.

A senior official of state police told IBNS, "A heavy police force along with Rapid Action Force (RAF) and combat force have been deployed to the hills. We are strictly handling the situation. CrPC section 144 has been imposed in front of hospitals and administrative offices."

"We have arranged interception teams, quick response teams, radio flying squads, heavy radio flying squads and water canons to foil any kind of violence," the official added.

As the last week's rampant violence that shattered a short-lived peace in Darjeeling, a hotbed for separatist movement for decades, the belligerence of the GJM, protesting against making Bengali a compulsory subject in schools, takes the situation to a flux.

Even as Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee succeeded in brokering a peace, the rise of her party, the Trinamool Congress, in Darjeeling and the division she was able to wedge in a unified movement of the hills people made the GJM scurry to arrest the slide in its support base.

Toy train services in NJP-Darjeeling and Darjeeling-Kurseong sections have been cancelled. Ticket counters in Darjeeling and Kurseong are closed.

Three senior IPS officials- Javed Shamim, Ajay Nanda and Siddhinath Gupta, newly appointed Darjeeling SP Akhilesh Chaturvedi and Darjeeling DM Jayashree Dasgupta are monitoring the situation.

The government has cancelled all leaves and made attendance compulsory for its employees during the strike days.

Meanwhile, a two-day strike in north Bengal's tea estates, called by a joint forum of trade unions (except TMC's union)  started on Monday.  Work has been hit in several tea gardens due to the strike.

GJM activists are staging demonstration in  few areas in the hilly district of West Bengal.

IPS official Javed Shamim told IBNS: "Scattered violence were reported, but those are very few. Entire situation is under control and peaceful here. Three persons have been arrested so far."

Two army coloumns are currently patrolling at Kalimpong while few units of central paramilitary forces have been deployed to several locations in the hills.

DM Jayashree Dasgupta told IBNS, "Almost all government establishments are open amid heavy security arrangements. Attendances are normal and our employees are working like other days." 

(Reporting by Deepayan Sinha)