Security forces patrolled the streets in the hills and Internet services remained suspended for the second day on Monday as Gorkha Janmukti Morcha supporters held protest march here demanding Gorkhaland and burnt effigies of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
"Three of our activists were killed. We are ready to give our lives but will not stop protesting till we get Gorkhaland," Sirish Pradhan, a GJM worker, said.
Former DGP RK Handa, now a BJP leader, who handled the last Gorkhaland agitation about 30 years ago, warned the movement, if not controlled soon, has the potential to snowball into a big violence. He said a tripartite meeting is the seeming solution.
"There were several incidents of protest and violence from 1986 to 1989. At times there were bandhs for 40 days at a stretch. The present situation can take an ugly turn if no steps are taken immediately. I believe a tripartite meeting with the intention to end the crisis at the hills is the solution," Handa said.
He said that the issue of Gorkhaland had been used by politicians over the years to play dirty politics. "It was started by the Congress to needle the Jyoti Basu government," he said but decided not to reply to the comments in favour of Gorkhaland by BJP MP SS Ahluwalia during the run up to the last MP election.
Talking about the Mamata Banerjee government, the 74-year-old retired IPS officer said, "As far as I have heard, she is against the division of state which had been the sentiment of the government in 1987. Darjeeling is almost like Afghanistan now."
Lauding the present lot of IPS officers who are handling the situation, he said, "They are very efficient IPS officers and I would advise them to keep their head cool and react according to the demand of the situation."
A truck was set ablaze allegedly by GJM workers at Kalijhora near Siliguri and its driver was also attempted to be put on fire after being doused with petrol. He has been admitted to Siliguri District Hospital with severe burn injury..
West Bengal Chief minister Mamata Banerjee, before leaving for the Netherlands to address a UN meeting said that what GJM people were doing at the hills was not good.
An all-party meeting has been scheduled on June 22 to find a solution to the logjam. Jan Andolan Party (JAP) supremo Harka Bahadur Chetri said, "Gorkhaland is not the demand of any particular party. It is a mass movement now. If the agenda is Gorkhaland then we will participate in the meeting. The demand is constitutional. We want peace but the Centre is sending troops and killing people on one hand and are sending a message of peace from Siliguri on the other. We condemn any type of violence even those carried out by the Morcha," Chetri said.
CPM MLA Md Salim said that Mamata should not have left for Netherlands before resolving the issue.
—With inputs from PTI
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