Normal life remains paralysed in Darjeeling Hills, HC unhappy

Normal life remained paralysed in Darjeeling hills today a day before Gorkha Janmukti Morcha, agitating for a separate Gorkhaland state, relaxes the indefinite bandh for four days from tomorrow.
As a 'janata curfew' (mobilising people on the streets) went into force following a call by GJM, life was badly hit in Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Kurseong sub-divisional towns with no transport on the roads as more arrests were made.
Darjeeling municipality councillor Subhomoy Chatterjee was among those arrested with the total number of arrests crossing 300, police said.
Food, including rice and sugar, to mitigate the suffering of the people, were being distributed by the district food supply department from 11 points in the three sub-divisions as decided by the West Bengal government.

The crippling of day-to-day life in the hills drew the displeasure of the Calcutta High Court today over GJM's violation of its order of August seven which had held the indefinite bandh to demand Gorkhaland as illegal.
Observing that the fundamental rights of people in Darjeeling were being curbed, it asked why GJM would not be asked to compensate damage to public and private property in the hills.

GJM President Bimal Gurung said in a Facebook post "we understand that the Hon'ble high court has taken on record the report filed by the state government and has consequently passed an interim order in the matter.

"We do not wish to respond to secondary hearsay reports of what the High Court might have said. Instead, we will respond appropriately after we have been served an authentic copy of the order of the Hon'ble High Court whose orders we are naturally bound to respect and honour," Gurung said.
GJM general secretary Roshan Giri said "the central government and the Prime Minister should intervene. It is not a law and order problem. It is a political problem. The people in the hills want Gorkhaland.