The agitating students shut the hill town on Sunday saying that the police used force on some Morcha activists who were on a hunger strike in Siliguri. Some 50 students were said to have been injured in the lathicharge. The students called the indefinite strike after the police intervention. [break]
The Morcha is fighting for a separate Gorkha state. Due to the banda, all educational institutions, industries, markets and traffic movement have come to a halt.
Claiming that the central government has not paid heed to its demand, General Secretary of the Morcha Roshan Giri warned that his party will announce a separate Gorkhaland on March 17 in case the center failed to addressed their demands by then.
“The state has resorted to use force against us when we are seeking just demands for all Gorkhalis. We will establish a separate Gorkhaland even at the cost of our lives,” Giri told myrepublica.com.
The proposed Gorkhaland includes three million population, out of which one million live in Darjeeling alone where more than 90 percent people are Nepali speaking.
Earlier, the Morcha had said that it will rethink on the proposed Gorkhaland, demanding that those areas in the hills with high Nepali population are incorporated in the proposal.
After dropping Dooars and Tarai area from the proposed Gorkhaland area, the Morcha has expected the proposal to be final, Bimal Gurung, the president of the party, said. He said the new proposal has not yet been officially announced. Gurung also informed during a mass meeting in Kalimpong that the proposal has been submitted to the Indian Union Home Minister.
The Morcha leaders, who till December 21 last year have sat for four rounds of talk with the central government, have blamed the central government of dilly-dallying.
The party intensified its struggle after December 26 last year stating that all efforts and requests to hold talks at the political level were not heard.
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