In a scathing attack on the Centre for trying to “destabilise and divide Bengal” Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday asked New Delhi to reconsider its decision to withdraw central forces from Darjeeling “barely hours after a police officer was shot dead by armed militants and huge quantities of arms and ammunition were recovered from their hideout.”
Banerjee who wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Rajnath Singh calling the decision to pull out 10-15 companies of CAPF a “politically and administratively bad decision” that was “contrary to common sense,” said the Centre's decision was one-sided and defied federal norms.
Wondering whether the decision had come from the BJP office rather than the North Bloc, Banerjee said the Centre would be held responsible if any untoward incident happened in the region. “Do they (Centre) not want peace to return in Darjeeling,” she wondered adding the decision was taken with a malicious intention to destabilise and divide Bengal which would not be allowed to happen.
In the light of Banerjee’s objection the Centre decided to take off only 7 and not 15 companies of CAPF, sources said. The State BJP chief Dilip Ghosh however, said the State Government was misusing the forces adding CAPF was not for protecting the police force which had been unleashed to torture the people of Darjeeling.
The Hill districts of Darjeeling and Kalimpong had been on the boil for the past four months or so witnessing a 105-day bandh, numerous rallies, destruction of Government properties, deaths, hardship to people, break-up of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha with the expulsion of senior leader Benay Tamang by party president Bimal Gurung and finally a case under UAPA being lodged against Gurung who was currently at large — and to nab whom a gun fight had ensued in forests of Singla that led to recovery of huge arms and ammunition and death of a police officer on Friday morning.
In a bizarre statement contradicting its own intent, Banerjee said, “at a time when peace and normalcy has returned to the Hills the Centre took a decision to withdraw seven companies of CAPFs. They took this decision without consulting the State Government. We are shocked. I personally spoke to Rajnathji and asked him not to withdraw the forces.”
The State BJP leadership however wondered questioning the need of central forces when peace had returned in the Hills. “Do you need central forces in a peaceful areaIJ” asked Ghosh. Earlier the BJP had blamed the Trinamool Government for pushing the State police men not trained to fight militants in the hilly terrain causing the death of Amitabha Malik a sub-inspector on Friday.