Darjeeling: Bimal Gurung sets up camp in Kurseong

Darjeeling, October 29, 2013

Gorkha Jamukti Morcha (GJM) president Bimal Gurung yesterday reached Kurseong town where he will camp for some days to reorganize the party’s local units there. I will stay here for some days and the main reason that I have come here is to reorganize the different units of my party, said Gurung to reporters in Kurseong.

Observers believe that the reorganization drive comes after many local Morcha leaders in Kurseong have been arrested and many others have fled due to frequent raids by the police since August.

Meanwhile, newly elected GTA chief executive Binay Tamang yesterday threatened to start an indefinite hunger strike from October 30 to demand release of all ‘political prisoners’ arrested in the recent Gorkhaland agitation of the Morcha.

He was arrested for different cases and is yet to receive bail in four cases. Scores of Morcha leaders and workers have arrested in previous cases by the police during the recent movement.

Tamang was arrested on August 21 and is a GTA member from Bloomfield constituency. He was announced as the new GTA chief executive on September 27 while he was still in judicial custody.

Morcha supporters who have been arrested along with nine GTA members including me should be released and demanding that, I will start a hunger strike from October 30, said Tamang to reporters while he was being produced in the Judicial Magistrate Court here.

Darjeeling Police on Oct 27 late night arrested 10 persons, mostly Morcha supporters, in connection to the arson of TMC leader Ranit Sundas’s house at Singbung. Six of them had been named in the compliant made by Sundas to the police.

GJM assistant secretary Jyoti Kumar Rai ruled out the involvement of Morcha workers in the incident.

The GNLF’s party office here at Judge Bazaar was closed down today with the lease owners of the building maintaining that they had not been informed about its purpose. They had asked the office for few hours only to hold a business meeting, said the lease owners.

(Courtesy: Sikkim Express)