The movement for a separate Gorkhaland State could soon metamorphose into a “non-vegetarian” affair with “bhayanak” consequences, top Gorkha Janmukti Morcha leadership has warned.
The most powerful Darjeeling outfit would wait till the presidential elections before taking a final “do-or-die” call.
The warning comes from Bimal Gurung and his clan within a fortnight of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee publicly suspecting “foreign hand” behind Gorkhaland turbulence. The Hill districts of Darjeeling and Kalimpong have been witnessing a continuous shut-down for the past more than a month throwing the local population into untold misery.
“What you have seen till now is a trailer of what is going to come. What will come is more terrible. Hence forward the fight will be decisive and bhayanak,” Gurung the GJM chief is known to have told his confidants, amid trickling reports of continuous torching of Government properties including fire brigade offices, vehicles, railway stations, BDO and panchayat offices etc.
Though the second largest Hill outfit Gorkha National liberation Front which is currently working under a common umbrella of dozen parties including GJM has “rejected violent activities as a mode to achieve our goal,” Gurung remained non-committal on whether his men would openly measure swords with the security forces.
GNlF spokesperson Y lama on Sunday said his party was not in favour of violence. “We want to go for a Gandhian movement based on non-violence. The people of the Hills and many people in the Dooars are with us. Though some politicians are trying to make it Bengal-versus-Gorkha people conflict it is a political matter based on the question of Gorkha ethnicity,” the GNlF leader said.
The GJM threat tends to come on a day when the Centre rushed in another four companies of CPF following a Calcutta High Court order which after hearing a PIl directed both Kolkata and Delhi to arrange for additional paramilitary forces.
Earlier, the GJM was planning an indefinite fast to be led by senior leader Benoy Tamang. However, the outfit put the plan on hold and decided to peddle the idea of a “bhanayak” movement apparently in order to draw the attention of the Centre.
Mamata Banerjee who has invited flak from many an opposition out fit in Bengal — for “unnecessarily provoking the GJM by ordering special audit into the Gorokhaland Territorial Authority accounts so that Gurung can be framed, maligned, deposed and replaced by her Trinamool Congress,” — has so far only offered conditional talks “if GJM shuns violence and withdraws bandh.”
Banerjee “miscalculated the Hill situation after trying to divide and rule by breaking the GTA (and in turn the GJM) into smaller autonomous ethnic councils dominated by lepchas, Gurungs, Tamangs etc. The move back fired to the extent that all the members of such smaller councils have now joined the movement for Gorkhaland,” experts said.
Meanwhile, sources said the least the Chief Minister cold do to cool the embers in Darjeeling by suspending the special audit which the GJM sees as a device to arrest Gurung.