Darjeeling: Prohibitory orders under Section 144 have been imposed in Darjeeling, as the hill town continues to be tense after the death of Gorkha leader Madan Tamang.
Tamang, the president of the Akhil Bharatiya Gorkha League (ABGL), was killed in the heart of Darjeeling, in public, by unidentified men on Friday last. His widow, Bharati Tamang, met the West Bengal Governor today.
Sixty-two-year-old Tamang wanted a negotiated settlement to the Gorkhaland dispute and was vocal in his dissent against the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM). In the First Information Report (FIR) filed in connection with Tamang's murder, the ABGL has accused GJM chief Bimal Gurung and other party leaders of conspiracy.
And people have been pouring out since he died, to hail Tamang as a martyr and to decry Bimal Gurung. Gurung was stopped today at Ghoon, 7 km from Darjeeling, with a large number of people blocking the road to prevent his motorcade from entering the town. There is heavy police presence in Ghoon.
On Monday, thousands of people had poured on to the streets in Darjeeling, braving rain, to join the silent funeral procession of Tamang, sending out a clear signal of rejection to the GJM.
People from all walks of life, including teachers and school students, joined leaders and workers of the Democratic Front, the anti-GJM eight-party combine, which includes the ABGL and the Congress and BJP, to pay their last respect to the leader, who has been called "the first martyr for democracy in Darjeeling hills."
The silence was punctuated by slogans against Bimal Gurung and another GJM leader Roshan Giri.
Inspector General of Police (North Bengal), K L Tamta, who is now camping in Darjeeling, told PTI that the people had spontaneously kept their shops and business establishments
closed for the third day on Monday as a mark of grief.
The GJM too had called a four-hour bandh to pay respect to Tamang on Monday. The situation turned tense when some members of the funeral procession uprooted GJM party flags from roadside shops and houses, Tamta said.
(With PTI inputs)