Morcha stops repaint work

Siliguri, Nov. 13: A team of policemen and district officials were forced to turn back from Panchnoi today after supporters of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha stopped them from painting a bridge that had party graffitis all over it.

In Panchnoi, Salbari, Methibari and Sukna, all located on NH55 near Siliguri, the Morcha has painted the walls of government offices with graffiti and hung party flags and banners on the lampposts and telephone poles.

A placard in Panchnoi, 4km from here, reads “welcome to Gorkhaland”.

The administration had approached all government departments with offices, installations or properties in these locations to delete the graffitis.

“At a meeting held two days ago, and we requested officials to delete the graffiti on government property and bring down the banners and flags hanging from government installations,” said Sharad Dwivedi, the subdivisional officer of Siliguri.

“Although officials of several government departments were present, only PWD (NH) responded,” Dwivedi added.

The team headed by Sumedha Pradhan, a deputy magistrate, reached Panchanoi around 11.30am to repaint the bridge. The Morcha had painted it in green and yellow — the colour of the party flag.

As two casual workers started covering the paint with a coat of lime, around 50-60 Morcha supporters arrived, shouting slogans and demanding that Pradhan and her team leave the spot.

“We stopped writing Gorkhaland on government signboards following a request from the governor,” said Madhusudan Thapa, the Siliguri sub-division secretary of the Morcha. “However, we are continuing with our movement and it is our democratic right to campaign with flags and banners and to paint the walls. We would protest against any attempt by the administration to infringe on our rights to campaign in favour of our demand.”

With the protest on, traffic movement on the highway was stopped for 10-15 minutes. Pradhan left the spot around 11.45am. Dwivedi said another meeting with the representatives of the departments would be held to fix new dates for the drive to rid the walls of graffiti.

Senior officials of district administration, however, hinted that the “policy of tolerance” would continue.

“We do not want any confrontation and have preferred to postpone the work at Panchanoi today,” said Surendra Gupta, the district magistrate of Darjeeling. “It is up to the departments concerned to act. We can only provide security as we did today.”

On the pen down strike by the contractual workers, Gupta said the agitators were likely to face a wage cut.

“They have been recruited on the basis of an agreement which says ‘no work no pay’. If they do not work, appropriate deductions would be made from their pay,” he said.