Darjeeling/Kolkata: The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha on Friday said it will not sit for talks unless Gorkhaland issue is discussed and ruled out an interim council for Darjeeling even as the situation in the hills remained largely peaceful on the second day of the party's indefinite bandh to protest Tuesday's police firing on its supporters.
In a reaction to Thursday's appeal by Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee to sit for negotiations, GJM general secretary Roshan Giri said Gorkhaland was the common aspiration of people in the Darjeeling hills and therefore the
talks should centre only around that demand.
The state government, on the other hand, said it would participate in fresh tripartite talks if they were called.
West Bengal Home Secretary GD Gautama told reporters in Kolkata that the state government was prepared for talks and was not considering a CBI investigation into last Tuesday's police firing at Sipchu in Jalpaiguri district in
which two alleged GJM supporters were killed.
"A magistrate-level inquiry into the police firing is on. The report will be submitted to the state government and there is no need to order a CBI or CID investigation now," he said.
Giri reiterated the demand for a CBI inquiry to establish the motive for the police firing and dismissed Bhattacharjee's allegation of starting the violence, claiming they were only conducting the movement in a Gandhian way.
Special IGP (Darjeeling) N Ramesh Babu told PTI that FIRs had been filed against senior GJM leaders - Harkabhadur Chetri, Kalyan Dewan, Binay Tamang (assistant secretary of GJM), Norden Lama and others for instigating mob violence.
On the second day of the GJM's indefinite bandh called to protest against the firing at Sipchu, normal life was paralysed in Darjeeling but no untoward incident was reported.
Shops, business establishments, schools and educational institutions were closed, vehicles were off roads and government offices recorded no attendance, official sources said.
Shop-owners downed shutters and the area looked like any bandh day, Darjeeling District Magistrate PMK Gandhi said.
However, in trouble-torn Jalpaiguri district, GJM supporters set ablaze a truck at Madarihat prompting a team of policemen to rush there, but nobody was arrested.
The BSF personnel conducted flag marches at Kalimpong sub-division, the DM said adding the sub-divisional officers had been asked to prepare a report of the loss of public property in the GJM violence after the Sipchu police firing.
In an apparent backlash to Tuesday's violence, local people at Malbazar in Jalpaiguri damaged a car belonging to the convoy of GJM activists who carried the body of a supporter killed in the firing to his home in Rangamati.
Police said the people raised anti-Gorkhaland slogans.
Darjeeling SP DP Singh said the situation was fast returning to normal in the Hills.
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