PTI

GJM activists protesting the police firing in Sipchu on Monday courted arrest at Kalimpong, Kurseong and Mirik police stations of the district even as the indefinite bandh called by the outfit entered the sixth day disrupting normal life.

Scores of GJM activists gathered before the police stations as part of the programme protesting against the Sipchu firing that has claimed three lives.

However, the number of those arrested or detained is yet to be known.

Meanwhile Gorkha ex-servicemen, who were sent back from the banks of Panchnoi river, barely 2 km from Siliguri on Sunday evening by the police, have been stopped again after they gathered at the spot in the morning to resume their Darjeeling to Siliguri padayatra, police said.

The police on Sunday had searched the house of Gorkha Vidyarthi Morcha secretary and the house of Keshabraj Pokhrel, who was allegedly involved in the killing of erstwhile Akhil Bharatiya Gorkha league Madan Tamang and is absconding since then.

Pokhrel was, however, not found during the search, police said today.

The bandh has hit normal life with LPG, vegetables and essential commodities becoming scarce. Vehicular traffic has come to a standstill across the district and offices and schools are closed.

But the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) on Sunday said the National Highway 31A, which passes through Darjeeling Hills district, has been exempted for the Sikkim traffic from the indefinite shutdown. Claiming the GJM never extended the bandh to the highway, GJM general secretary Roshan Giri said the NH 31A was open for Sikkim traffic and out of the purview of the Darjeeling bandh underway in the neighbouring state.

Trouble broke out in Darjeeling following the death of GJM supporters in police firing during a clash between the women’s wing of the GJM and the police in Dooars on February 8.

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