KALIMPONG NEWS :24 hrs. Strike on 18th February..24 EFR Jawan killed..Fire in Sikkim- 1 died

Kalimpong News: GJVM called 24hrs. bundh on Thursday the 18th February. The postponed bundh of 13th February will be held on 18th a GJVM statement stated. The bandh will be in effect in the three Hill subdivisions of Darjeeling , Terai and Dooars. NH31 is exempted from the bandh.
IE, Kolkata: Clouds loom large again over Darjeeling Hills as the Vidyarthi Yuba Morcha — the students’ wing of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha — has called for a bandh on February 18 in Darjeeling, Dooars, Terai and Siliguri.

Last year, the Hills witnessed a series of bandhs that paralysed life before the December 21 tripartite talks.  This time, the Vidyarthi Morcha called the bandh protesting against the government’s decision not to allow the Morcha to have a rally in Siliguri.

“For the last one month we have been demanding that the government allow us to hold a rally in Siliguri,” said Kismet Chettri, general secretary of the Morcha.

“The government’s refusal is arbitrary and against the spirit of democracy. We have called this bandh to press for the demand.” 

Chhetri said the bandh was being called to urge the Centre to declare the next round of talks.

During the December 21 talks, it was decided that the Centre would announce the next date of talks within 45 days. The deadline elapsed on February 5, but the announcement is yet to come. Union Home Secretary GK Pillai had told The Indian Express last week that the issue will be decided in the next meeting of Union cabinet committee on political affairs.

The Morcha said they would go in for bigger agitation if the Centre did not announce the next round of talks soon. “There is a limit to our patience,” said Morcha spokesperson Roshan Giri.

GJMM kept guessing

Romit Bagchi, SNS, SILIGURI, 15 FEB: Wrinkles of anxiety keep deepening on the GJMM brow over the “unexpected” delay in announcing the date and venue of the fifth round of tripartite parleys on the part of the Centre. The hill-based party issued a 45-day deadline for the next round of talks in course of the fourth round held in Darjeeling on 21 December last year. It also demanded the next talks at the political level. The party president, Mr Bimal Gurung issued an ultimatum to the Centre to announce the date by 10 February at a public meting in Kalimpong. But till today the intimation keeps eluding the GJMM. 
Asked to explain the probable reasons behind this delay, the GJMM media secretary, Dr Harka Bahadur Chhetri said that his party was in the dark. “Our president is in constant touch with the concerned Central government officials, this much I can say. Beyond this, we are as much in the dark as a layman. But the inordinate delay is intriguing, to say the least,” Dr Chettri said.
Meanwhile, the mainstream parties have chosen to steer clear of the matter, saying that the ball is in the court of the Centre. 
Commenting on the matter, a senior Trinamul Congress leader and the Leader of the Opposition in the state Assembly, Mr Partha Chatterjee said that the state government should initiate a political process on its own to defuse the crisis. “An all- party meeting should be convened, involving all concerned including the GJMM. Apart from the official tripartite talks, such political parleys at the state political level might go a long way in breaking ground for an enduring solution to the tangle,” he added. 
A senior state Congress leader, Dr Manas Bhuniya said that he was not in a position to comment on the delay as far as the initiation of the political level talks was concerned. “The Centre and the state government would decide things in consultation with the GJMM,” he said.
But expressing reservation over the effectiveness of political level talks at this juncture, the state BJP vice president, Mr Sabyasachi Bagchi said that embroiled deep into the Telangana impasse, the UPA government was most unlikely to move much regarding the Gorkhaland issue. “It is our considered opinion that the administrative level talks should continue till a favourable situation evolves to take up the more serious issues at the political levels. Such a day is still far off,” the BJP leader said.

Maoists massacre cops-24 die, bazar used as cover

The Eastern Frontier Rifles camp after it was set ablaze by Maoists on Monday. Picture by Samir Mondal

TT, Midnapore, Feb. 15: Maoist guerrillas today stormed an Eastern Frontier Rifles camp and killed at least 24 policemen in their biggest strike yet on a state force, taking advantage of a weekly bazaar as they crept up on the unsuspecting cops.

Before leaving, the rebels, many of them women, set fire to the camp in Shilda, 75km from Midnapore town.

When police reinforcements from Binpur and Belpahari, some 8-10km away, reached the spot about three hours later trekking through forests to avoid mined roads, they found bodies strewn across the tents still smouldering on the grounds of the local primary health centre. Some policemen, who had taken bullets during the one-hour 5pm attack, lay groaning.

“At least 21 policemen have died in the attack,” said West Midnapore district magistrate N.S. Nigam.

“This is the heaviest casualty that Bengal police have suffered at the hands of Maoists,” said Surajit Kar Purkayastha, IG, law and order. “Never before have the police here suffered so many losses in one attack. Arms and ammunition were also looted. We are taking stock to find out just how much has been looted.”

Later in the night, Maoist guerrilla wing chief Kishanji warned of more attacks unless Operation Greenhunt was stopped. “This is our reply to Operation Greenhunt that has been launched against us, especially since innocent villagers are also being targeted. Unless the operation is halted, we shall carry on with such attacks, not just in Bengal but all across the country,” he said.

“Our appeal to the policemen is to leave Jangalmahal and if they cannot do this, they should leave their jobs for their own safety. At least some innocent villagers will be spared.”

The attack on the Eastern Frontier Rifles (EFR) camp came nearly four months after Maoists, led by a young woman, rode bikes to a police station in Sankrail, in West Midnapore, killed two officers and took the officer-in-charge hostage.

A police officer said the rebels took advantage of the weekly haat and came with their arms hidden in pick-up vans. “They did not arouse suspicion because on the day of the haat the traffic is very heavy on the road on which the EFR camp stands,” the officer said. “Also, the Maoists took this opportunity to mingle with the crowds.”

Sources said the guerrillas first surveyed the camp and then, as the crowds started to thin, struck after being joined by about 20 others on motorcycles. Witnesses said many of the attackers were women.

The 50-odd policemen at the camp fired back but soon realised they were hopelessly outnumbered. With casualties mounting, the policemen retreated into the nearby jungles. Till late tonight, 10 of them had returned since the joint forces reached the camp, some 215km from Calcutta. Two policemen, who took bullets in their legs and couldn’t escape, pretended to be dead when the Maoists set the tents on fire.

Seven injured cops had been shifted to a hospital in Binpur by local people before the police reinforcements arrived.

“The surprise element also went in favour of the Maoists,” said a police officer. “Not all the policemen at the camp were on duty and were relaxing. So the suddenness of the attack caught the EFR personnel off guard.”

Cook Rakesh Lepcha said he was making chapatis when he heard a “huge” sound. “I rushed out of the camp and suddenly found myself facing bullets,” Lepcha recalled. “I ducked and rushed inside the health centre to protect myself. But then I saw bodies falling and our troops outnumbered. I saw our jawans retreating and knew there was no hope. I quickly scaled the wall at the back of the health centre and escaped.”

Lepcha then called up the EFR headquarters in Salua, near Kharagpur.

Restaurant owner Kartik Karmakar also heard a “huge sound” — of an exploding improvised device. “Then I saw the Maoists — and there just seemed to be too many of them — firing at the camp,” Karmakar said. “I pulled down the shutters. Some of the women Maoists then came up to us and said not to be scared as innocent villagers wouldn’t be harmed.”

Police sources said the Maoists were armed with sophisticated weapons. “They had weapons like Insas and AK rifles. These weapons are normally used by Maoists in Jharkhand. In all probability, they were from that state since Shilda is close to the Jharkhand border.”

From the cover of a wall, cop sees colleagues fall

(Top) EFR cop Rakesh Lepcha points to a dead colleague at their camp in Shilda; (above) one of the injured policemen. Pictures by Samir Mondal

TT, Midnapore, Feb. 15: One moment the two sentries at the gate were shooting at the Maoists, the next moment they were on the ground, blood oozing from their injuries and life slowly ebbing away.

Standing rooted near a tent pitched on the grounds of the primary health centre at Shilda, policeman and camp cook Rakesh Lepcha watched in horror as cop after cop fell to Maoist bullets, hopelessly outnumbered and taken by surprise.

“Initially, I simply couldn’t move,” Lepcha said at night after reinforcements arrived from Binpur and Belpahari.

“Then I realised that it was a Maoist attack and a very major one at that. My first instinct was to run for cover and that is what I did.”

Lepcha left his tent where he was cooking dinner for the EFR personnel around five this evening and rushed to the safety of the primary health centre. Secure behind the brick walls, he watched the Maoists quickly gain ground.

“There were about seven or eight jawans on duty at the gate and around the camp, on the lookout for attackers,” Lepcha said.

“Another 20 had just returned from patrol and were in the process of taking off their uniforms and preparing for the night. The rest were simply relaxing when the attack took place.”

The Maoists struck by exploding an improvised device, the sound of which brought Lepcha rushing out of the tent. “There were just too many of them and their arms were sophisticated. So they were quickly gaining ground,” Lepcha said.

“The way they were advancing really put the fright into me.”

Although some of the policemen were relaxing, they quickly picked up their guns and started shooting at the Maoists. But they were no match for the guerrillas who had descended in “hordes”.

“There was just too much confusion with the sudden attack and the jawans were trying to retaliate in whichever way they could,” Lepcha said. “I could see in the distance not just men but also women with guns firing at us.”

As soon as the attack took place, all the shops in the area downed their shutters and villagers scampered away. Some small thatched shops along the outer boundary of the camp caught fire as bombs kept going off one after the other.

After about 45 minutes — “a lifetime” for Lepcha — the policemen still alive realised that the battle had been lost and began to flee.

“Seeing so many of their fellowmen die in front of their eyes shattered all my colleagues,” Lepcha said.

“They realised that they were in no position to put up a fight and if they tried to, they would all die. They abandoned the fight, jumped the wall and fled.”

That was what Lepcha did too. He ran into the forest. “I did it at the right time,” he said. “I watched the Maoists enter the camp and set everything on fire.” (above pic:IE)

A milk can, suspected to be stuffed with explosives, left behind by the guerrillas on the police route after the strike at Shilda. Below the can is a Maoist poster. (Samir Mondal)

TT, Calcutta, Feb. 15: The Eastern Frontier Rifles — EFR— is a wing of the Bengal police raised to control riots, insurgency and law-and-order trouble.

But never in its existence since the British period has the force bled as much as it did this evening.

About 450 personnel of the force with a strength of 2,700 are now deployed in Maoist-hit West Midnapore, Bankura and Purulia.

But senior police officers who would not go on record said though an emergency force, the EFR lacked the battle-readiness of central outfits such as the CRPF. To the Maoists, they are soft targets.

“The level of training and exposure for BSF and CRPF personnel is different. They are engaged in combat with Maoists and insurgents across India. They are always battle-ready. The EFR’s experience is limited, they are soft targets,” a senior officer said.

There have been at least two large-scale Maoist strikes on EFR personnel in West Midnapore in the past few years. In October 2004, six policemen were blown off in the Bankishole forest of Lalgarh. Four cops were killed in a bazaar in Jamboni last November.

After the last strike, state armed police inspector-general Anil Kumar, who heads the force, had accused his own men of not following the “basic rules of a combat zone”.

“They were too relaxed. Had they been alert, they could have… retaliated,” he had said, unwittingly raising a question about his own role.

In private, a cop had hit back, saying: “Motivation is very low here…. (To keep the motivation high) is the job of our superiors. They should visit camps regularly and brief us. But they hardly do. They sit in their air-conditioned rooms and pass instructions.”

The EFR is headquartered at Salua near Kharagpur, also in West Midnapore. To enter the force, candidates have to clear an entrance test and undergo a year’s training.

The men in grey shirts and khaki pants were a familiar site in Calcutta when riots were feared after the demolition of the Babri Masjid in December 1992 and Indira Gandhi’s assassination in 1984.

Hill Garden shuts- Manager unable to provide vehicle- 4 yr girl dies

TT, Darjeeling, Feb. 15: The Balasun Tea Garden of the BK Birla Group suspended work today, two days after an assistant manager and his family were allegedly assaulted following the death of a worker’s four-year-old daughter. The workers alleged that the failure of the garden management to provide a vehicle on time led to Sikshit’s death, who collapsed on the way to the nearest health centre in Sonada, 25km from Balasun. In a similar incident in August, Tata Tea was forced to shut down one of its gardens in the Dooars, Nowera Nuddy, after workers beat up the medical officer and confined him for 11 hours when he refused to grant leave to a woman worker. Normality returned in December. A.K Jha, the superintendent of Balasun, said: “On Saturday morning, a worker Ganesh Gurung had come to the assistant manager S.K. Chowdhury, asking for a vehicle to take his child to hospital. “The assistant manager asked a chowkidar to call the driver. The driver did not come. A second driver was called for but he failed to arrive as he was sick and on leave. The third driver was called but by then the parents had left for the hospital on a private taxi.” “Since the vehicle (that was supposed to take the child to hospital) was loaded with chemicals, the assistant manager personally went to offload them,” he said. Jha said he had heard that the child had been suffering from diarrhoea and nausea for the past two days. When Chowdhury returned home at 9.30am (after offloading), a mob of about 50 to 60 people allegedly entered his house and assaulted him along with his wife, son and a guest. They blamed him for the child’s death. “Chowdhury ran to the factory and locked himself in. Ajit Rai, the manager of the garden, was on leave but he returned to the garden at 11.30am and the mob confined them for a meeting,” said Jha. Sikshit’s body was also brought to the venue of the meeting in the factory and the workers demanded that the company should compensate the family, transfer Chowdhury from the garden and a 24-hour ambulance service. “Even though Rai (the manager) could not agree to the conditions without permission from the company superiors, he did so under duress,” said Jha. The company considering the situation not conducive for running the garden, it put up a notice suspending work for an indefinite period. Garden officials said the district labour officer had been informed about the suspension of work. They have filed an FIR with Jorebungalow police station against the attackers. Prashant Pradhan, assistant general secretary of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha’s trade union wing, said: “The management is definitely at fault. The assistant manager son had behaved badly with the workers and abused them. The garden should not have been closed. We will try and end the stalemate as early as possible.” The garden, 45km from here, has an employee strength of 600. Jayshree Tea Company, which owns it, has six other estates in the hills while the parent company, the B.K. Birla Group, has tea interests in Assam, south India and Kenya. Hill worries UK Patron TT,Siliguri, Feb. 15: The toy train is popular in the UK even in times of recession, but the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway Society is worried that the political uncertainty in north Bengal will hit hard the hill railway’s international reputation. “In the UK, we’ve had our fair share of economic problems. But it is heartening to see that the tours to Darjeeling are selling well and I am delighted to have the opportunity of introducing more DHR enthusiasts to the adventure of a lifetime. However, bad news always travels faster than good. I understand that there are very important political issues at stake that may impact the DHR in various ways,” said David Barrie, the chairman. Barrie was referring to the statehood movement by the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha that cost the DHR dear. He introduced a group of 26 European tourists to the DHR. Barrie, who has come to India on a 12-day visit, was speaking at the 10th annual conference of DHR lovers here on Saturday. “The news on the web gives cause for concern and impacts the potential tourist market. It would be a great loss for everybody if the cost of maintaining the DHR coupled with political uncertainty gives the Indian Railways a cause to reconsider the service,” he added. The DHRS chairman and a few other society members reviewed the community projects funded by them. The DHR India Support Group — the society’s India chapter — was recently given an award in the UK by the Association of Community Rail Partnerships for its contribution for charity projects along the tracks. Barrie presented the award to the India chapter of the DHRS during the conference.