Murder arrest averts Kalimpong strike

TT, Darjeeling, Jan. 3: The arrest of Robert Rai, accused of killing a Gorkha Janmukti Vidyarthi Morcha leader on New Year’s Day, averted a strike in Kalimpong subdivision today. The Kalimpong unit of the Vidyarthi Morcha had threatened to close down the subdivision unless Rai was arrested by today morning. “Since the accused has been arrested, there is no question of calling a further strike,” said Keshav Raj Pokhrel, the general secretary of the Vidyarthi Morcha. A police officer said: “Robert Rai, 30, had been arrested from Pedong around 10pm yesterday and been charged with murder.” Investigation is on to find out the motive behind the murder, he added. “On New Year’s Day, Robert Rai attacked the general secretary of our Pedong unit, Puran Moktan, 28, with a wooden beam following an altercation over providing passage to a vehicle that Rai was driving. Puran died soon after he was admitted to the Pedong hospital yesterday,” said Deep Thapa, the assistant general secretary of the Vidyarthi Morcha’s Kalimpong unit. Pedong, 15km from Kalimpong, was shut yesterday to protest the murder. Sources said unidentified persons attacked Rai’s house in Pedong and fled after setting it on fire. The Vidyarthi Morcha has, however, described the murder as “not political”. “There is no political motive behind the murder. It happened at the spur of the moment,” said Thapa. Darjeeling police chief D.P. Singh said: “The person who died belonged to the Vidyarthi Morcha and the accused, too, is said to be a Morcha supporter.” In another incident, the body of Lance Naik Vijay Kumar, 34, of the 27 Mountain Division, was found near the cantonment in Kalimpong yesterday. Kumar hailed from Bihar. “It looks like a murder,” said Singh. Centre's stand on Telangana has impacted North Bengal Buddhadeb Sify.com, Jan 3:West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee Sunday criticised the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government's stand on Telangana issue, saying its decision had impacted the law and order situation in the northern parts of the state. 'The centre's decision to announce a separate statehood status for Telangana has fuelled fresh agitation in parts of north Bengal as separatist elements such as Gorkha Janamukti Morcha (GJM) and some other groups in the terai have started demanding for similar status in the region,' Bhattacharjee said at an occasion of celebrating the 44th year of Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M)'s Bengali mouthpiece daily Ganashakti. 'The centre's decision on Telangana has impacted the law and order situation in our state as well.' On Union Home Minister P.Chidambaram's letter to the state government, Bhattacharjee said he had sent his reply. According to sources, Chidambaram had, in the letter in last week of December, asked the chief minister to control the incidents of political violence which are going unabated all across the state. 'The opposition Trinamool Congress are hand in glove with the Maoists and they have also joined hands with the separatist elements in north Bengal to destabilise the law and order mechanism of the state,' the chief minister claimed. Nine held for driver death TT, Jaigaon, Jan. 3: Nine persons have been arrested in the past 24 hours after police conducted raids at Alipurduar, Falakata and Madarihat in connection with the murder of a driver. Mohammed Soban Ali’s body was found in the forest area of North Khayerbari in the Madarihat range on December 23. A vest had been used to strangle him. Nasir Ali said his 20-year-old brother used to drive a Scorpio belonging to Dasu Sattar of Jaigaon. Three youths had booked the car on December 22 to visit Malbazar, 130km away. “We became worried when he did not return home even the next day. Then we came to know that the body of a youth had been found in a jungle at North Khayerbari. We went to the police station and identified the body,” Nasir Ali said. Additional district superintendent of police of Alipurduar S.R. Mishra said the law keepers have seized the cellphone of the murdered man as well as the accused. The Scorpio is, however, missing. “The gang is specialised in stealing cars. Many more arrests are likely to follow,” Mishra said. He, however, declined to disclose the names of the arrested youths “in the interest of the investigation”. Alert village rescues 13-yr-old - Mob in Harischandrapur sets fire to kidnappers’ car, four abductors caught Malda, Jan. 3: Alert classmates, a prompt headmaster and more than 50 people of a Harischandrapur village caught four traffickers fleeing with a 13-year-old yesterday, blocking the road with tree trunks and co-ordinating the entire operation with a swiftness brought about by a united resistance to human trafficking and little faith in law keepers. The villagers of Premabhaktipur damaged the white Ambassador, in which the abductors were fleeing with the girl, before setting it on fire. Till late into the night, they refused to hand over the kidnappers to police. Witnesses said around 3.30pm yesterday, the girl, a student of Class VII of Premabhaktipur High Madarsa, was getting ready to go home after a unit test when the white Ambassador pulled up. “It was so sudden that for a moment we were scared it would ram into us. Four men got out of the car and dragged our friend in. We heard her screaming as the car disappeared down the Harischandrapur-Chandipur road,” a classmate of the girl said. The madarsa had emptied out by then and there were only five to six students on the almost deserted school grounds. They informed the headmaster, Zamil Akhtar, who in turn rang up the panchayat pradhan of Rashidabad. Premabhaktipur is in the Rashidabad gram panchayat area. Since the pradhan was not there, the headmaster’s call was taken by his deputy, Shakil Shiraji, who realised that the car would go past the panchayat office, 2km from the madarsa. He swung into action immediately and, along with others, set up a blockade by placing tree trunks on the road to Chandipur— the only one leading out of the village — to stop the vehicle. The car arrived within 10 minutes and was forced to stop, as there were no side-lanes leading out of the main road. The villagers rushed to the car with sticks and sickles and found the girl gagged and tied to the floor. In the melee, one of the kidnappers fled. While a section of villagers beat up the gang members and refused to hand them over to the police, others were against the law being taken into one’s own hand. At the end, the four abductors — Rustam Ali, Rakib Sheikh, Maqbul Hossain and Faridul Islam — were locked up in a house till the police arrived two hours later. “The villagers had little faith in the law keepers and they were not wrong. Had we depended on the police, the car with the abductors would have fled,” said the deputy pradhan of the Congress-led panchayat. The four, all residents of Harischandrapur, were finally arrested at 10pm after the girl’s father filed an FIR alleging abduction and an almost six-hour persuasion by the police to hand over the abductors. Malda police chief Bhuban Mondol said the Harishchandrapur police were away in Chanchol College because of election there. “But they were prompt in visiting Premabhaktipur. Four persons have been arrested. We are looking for the fifth. We are also trying to find out if the four are linked to a bigger trafficking gang,” he added.