Siliguri faces rally threat, Heritage tag on hill buildings, March to Dzongu aborted

Siliguri faces rally threat
- 100-odd Gorkhaland marchers eye route through heart of trade hub on way to the Dooars OUR BUREAU - The Telegraph

Siliguri/Darjeeling, April 16: Around 100 supporters of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha Agsu today reached Sukna, having walked 70km from Darjeeling on their way to the Sankosh on the Bengal-Assam border, the last frontier of the new state that they are demanding.

“Our aim is to garner support for Gorkhaland from people who live along the route,” Ravi Shankar Sharma, the president of the students’ body affiliated to the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha, said this evening.

Till late in the evening, the marchers had not decided whether they would bypass Siliguri or not. Some favoured walking to Sevoke through NH31, which skirts Siliguri town, while others wanted to walk along Hill Cart Road from Darjeeling More and head for Salugara via Panitanki More and Sevoke Road.

Sharma, however, said they planned to enter Siliguri and halt at Sevoke, the entry point to the Dooars, tomorrow night. “We will have 100-120 marchers (a few people from Sukna will join),” he said. Only 16 people had started off from Darjeeling on April 13.

“If we can start early, our plan is to go up to Court More (in the heart of Siliguri town) and then take Sevoke Road. If it is late, we would take Sevoke Road from Sevoke More, covering a portion of Hill Cart Road. The district police administration has allowed us to take the route,” Sharma said.

The district superintendent of police of Darjeeling, Rahul Srivastava, however, said he had no information in this regard. Rajesh Yadav, the additional superintendent of Siliguri, said: “I don’t know about any decision so far. My seniors will decide.”

Siliguri could witness more activity in favour of Gorkhaland in the coming days with lawyers from across the Darjeeling Hills deciding to hold a rally in the plains soon.

Poonam Kumar Sharma, the secretary of the Legal Aids Awareness Forum, said: “We will hold a rally in Siliguri on April 22 to protest against the lathicharge on ex-servicemen at Darjeeling More on April 9.” The police had acted to stop a rally of the ex-servicemen from entering Siliguri town.

The Forum is an apolitical body of lawyers in Darjeeling but their counterparts from Kalimpong and Kurseong are expected to join them for the programme.

“We will start from Gurung Bustee More (along Hill Cart Road) and proceed towards Court More where we will submit a memorandum to district officials,” said Poonam Sharma.

The rally will also raise the demand for Gorkhaland inclusive of Siliguri and the Dooars.

“Siliguri and the Dooars have always been integral parts of the Darjeeling district. That is why we want to include Siliguri within our Gorkhaland demand,” said Poonam Sharma.

The Morcha, too, is expected to hold a meeting at Bagajatin Park in Siliguri on April 27.

The lawyers and Morcha leaders have not yet sought permission from the authorities, but said they would do so in a couple of days.
District magistrate Rajesh Pandey had yesterday announced that all applications seeking permission for organising political meetings in Siliguri would henceforth be referred to the Bengal government.

Joy ride spoiled

Tourists could not enjoy the toy train trip from Darjeeling to Batasia today despite the Morcha keeping the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway’s joy ride out of the purview of its indefinite shutdown of government offices across the hills. Railway sources said the service was withdrawn because all the booking counters were closed. Other tourist spots and facilities remained open.

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Heritage tag on hill buildings
- Rs 53 lakh for renovation VIVEK CHHETRI - The Telegraph

Darjeeling, April 16: The 158-year-old Darjeeling Municipality building and Municipal Boy’s High School have been declared heritage properties by the West Bengal Heritage Commission.

Pemba Tshering Ola, the chairman of the civic body, said the commission also sanctioned Rs 53 lakh for the renovation of the two structures. “While Rs 37 lakh will be for the refurbishment of the municipal building, the rest will be spent on repairing the school,” said Ola.

The civic body is getting ready to float tenders for the renovation of the buildings, which are made of stones, so that the work can start in a couple of months.

The municipality building had been partially destroyed in a fire in 1995. However, the structure was restored to the original form after late Shasheesh Prasad, an architect in the town, had come forward to repair it free of cost.

A couple of years ago, the Rotary Club of Darjeeling had collected funds from the public to renovate the clock tower of the municipality.

The Municipal Boy’s High School, which was founded in 1910 near the Darjeeling Motor Stand, was shifted to Landela Road in 1922. The funds come at a time when the building is in need of immediate repair.

Apart from the refurbishment of the two buildings, the municipality has decided to take a few other steps to bring back the “charm of old Darjeeling”.

“We will request all the traders from Darjeeling Railway station to Chowrastha to plant at least two saplings in front of their shops within a week,” said Tenzing Khambachey, the councillor in charge of the conservancy department.

The civic body has also requested all hotels to stop dumping garbage in the containers kept along roads. Instead, the municipal vans would come to collect the waste piled up in hotels,” said Khambachey.

The municipality will continue to be firm in ensuring that the ban on plastic is enforced completely and has even sought the help of police. A meeting was recently held with the district police chief.

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In hunger strike, Tibetans bridge generation gap
OUR CORRESPONDENT - The Telegraph

Siliguri, April 16: Phurbu Dolma, 90, can easily see the similarities between the recent Chinese crackdown on Tibetans and the experience she had 50 years ago when, as a middle-aged homemaker in Tibet, she was forced to flee to India with many other members of her community.

Phurbu, who now lives in Kalimpong, is taking part in a 24-hour hunger strike, organised under the banner of the Tibetan Solidarity Sub-Committee, which began at Indira Maidan here this afternoon.

She is not alone. Fifty-nine other Tibetans, many of whom were born and brought up in India where they have been in exile since 1959, have joined her in the fast.

“We hardly find any difference in the terror unleashed by the Chinese government since March this year and the oppression we had faced half-a-century ago,” Phurbu said, holding a prayer wheel. “Only the context and the faces have changed and nothing else. The degree of torture inflicted on innocent people has intensified.”

The hunger strike appears to have bridged the generation gap among the Tibetans. The protesters at Indira Maidan include Tashi Csongpa (86) from Salugara and 17-year-old Sampa Legden, arguably the youngest one around. All of them raised anti-Chinese slogans and demanded intervention of the international community to end the crisis in Tibet.

“The young generation is keen to know about our experiences which we often share with them,” Tashi said. “They should understand the reasons behind our 50-year-old movement and our demand for repatriation to an independent Tibet.”

The organisers of the hunger strike clarified their stance on the Olympics. The Olympics torch relay has already seen violent protests in London, Paris and San Francisco and trouble is expected when it comes to Delhi tomorrow.

“We are not against the Olympics, but feel that the Chinese government has failed to respect the spirit of the Games by continuously violating human rights and killing people in Tibet,” said D. Dorjee, the vice-president of the committee. “Fact-finding delegations from international organisations should be sent to Tibet to dig out the truth.”

Palden Dhondup, a welfare officer of the Tibetan government-in-exile at Dharamsala who is posted in Darjeeling, echoed Dorjee.

“Unless the Chinese government stops its aggression and sits with us for a dialogue, our democratic protests in the form of hunger strikes, rallies and demonstrations will continue,” said Dhondup.

The protesters also displayed the photographs of 152 Tibetans who they think have died in Lhasa and other places in the past couple of months. In the evening, a candle prayer was held for the dead.

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Meena focuses on landslides
OUR CORRESPONDENT - The Telegraph

Kalimpong, April 16: DGHC administrator B.L. Meena has agreed to take up landslide prevention work in the hills on a priority basis. He, however, cautioned that it would take time to accomplish the onerous task.

After meeting representatives of NGOs like Citizen Rights Forum, Kalimpong, and Save The Hills, Meena said the Bengal government has already identified roads, drinking water, rural electrification, education and health as priority areas, and landslide prevention would be added to the list.

“We will have to consult government experts on disaster management. We will start working on it, but it will take time,” Meena said.

The DGHC administrator, however, added that the forced closure of government offices would only cause further delay in development work. The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha has begun an indefinite shutdown in all government offices in the hills from Monday.

“Clearly, the DGHC administration can do nothing much if offices continue to remain closed like this,” agreed N. P. Dixit, the president of the rights forum. Dixit and his team in their meeting with Meena suggested five priority areas for him to work on. While road, water and electricity were common areas of intent, the rights body also suggested agriculture and landslides.

“We also suggested setting up of review committees in all the three hill subdivisions to oversee the implementation of development work,” said Dixit.

Meena, on his part, said he would welcome any arrangement that would ensure transparency.

The decision of the administrator to meet teams of citizens was hailed as a welcome change from the style of functioning of the previous regime.

“Let alone common citizens, the previous administrator (GNLF chief Subash Ghisingh) did not even entertain the views of his own party members,” said an NGO representative who met Meena today.

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March to Dzongu aborted
OUR BUREAU - The Telegraph

Gangtok, April 16: The Lepchas from the Darjeeling hills marching towards Dzongu in North Sikkim had to turn back at Dikchu today after facing open hostility from their Sikkimese “brothers”.

A police team escorting the marchers bundled them into vehicles and took them back to Rangpo on the Bengal border. Around 500 Lepchas, including some from Rangpo, were on their way to Dzongu, ostensibly on a pilgrimage to their holy land, although their real aim was to protest against the mega hydel power projects being set up there.

“We were marching to our holy land but the Sikkim government hoodwinked us into returning,” said Dorjee T. Lepcha, the president of the Kalimpong Lepcha Youth Association.

Dorjee admitted that they returned to avoid clashes with “Lepcha brothers” in Sikkim. He said bottles were thrown at the marchers and shops downed shutters along their route to prevent them from buying refreshments. “The people also used provocative and filthy language.”

According to police, hundreds of Lepchas from Dzongu were camping at Namprikdang, the entry point to the Lepcha reserve, to stop the marchers. Fearing more violence, the police convinced the marchers to abort their mission.

The deputy inspector-general of police (range) of Sikkim, Akshay Sachdeva, said Dzongu was a protected area and permits are needed from the North Sikkim district collectorate to go there. “The marchers had no permits and there was the possibility of clashes. So we took them back to Rangpo,” Sachdeva said.

At a news conference in Gangtok, K.T. Gyaltsen, the spokesperson for the ruling Sikkim Democratic Front, termed the march a plot by the Opposition. “By bringing people from outside and interfering with the internal matters of the state, the opposition parties are trying to obstruct the development process,” Gyaltsen said.

Affected Citizens of Teesta (ACT), whose members are on a relay hunger strike at B.L. House here to protest against the hydel power projects, got a shot in the arm today when activist Medha Patkar paid them a visit.

Patkar also visited the four who have been on an indefinite fast for the past 30 days and have been admitted to Sir Thutob Namgyal Memorial Hospital.

“It is a matter of pain and anguish to see how members of the Lepcha community from the hills are struggling for months,” Patkar said. “We are ready to hear what chief minister Pawan Chamling has to say, but unfortunately he is not saying anything.

“On the way, I met the marchers who were turned back. We were stopped at Nandigram (in Bengal) too, but we ultimately won there,” Patkar added.

Trouble had erupted in Nandigram after the Bengal government went on an acquisition drive to set up a petrochemical hub there. The proposed hub has been since shifted to the island of Nayachar.