GLP's misbehaviour leads to clash between Public and GLP

Kalimpong, Jan. 2: An altercation between a few members of Gorkhaland Personnel and residents of a village near Gorubathan descended into a full-fledged clash in which the camp of the voluntary force was ransacked and one persons was injured last night.

The violence was the result of the pent-up anger of the people at Upper Fagu, who said the GLP members were frequently misbehaving with the villagers and creating problems in the area.

The GLP is the voluntary force raised by the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha in 2008 for “crowd control”. Later, the party had tried to make the squad function like a parallel police force, checking cars and seizing “illegal liquor” in the Darjeeling hills”.

According to sources, the clash took place after a group of GLP members came to the local market around 6pm and started misbehaving with shopkeepers and bystanders. When some locals protested, the volunteers beat up Munna Gurung, 38, and Dominique Thapa, 29.

As the word of the assault spread, the village youths decided to retaliate. Armed with sticks, they swooped on the camp in a tea garden, hurling stones at the tents for the volunteers and smashing the sentry gate. “This resulted in a full-fledged fight between the locals and the GLP boys. The villagers ransacked about 20 temporary tin sheds the GLP had constructed on the tea estate,” said a resident.

A vehicle belonging to the squad was also smashed by the attackers. A GLP volunteer, Pranay Gurung, suffered injuries on the head and was admitted to a hospital in Siliguri.

The GLP sought to downplay the incident. “One of our boys was intoxicated and this led to some problems. There is nothing more to it,” said Ramesh Allay, the GLP president, on phone from Gorubathan, 70km from here.

Munna and Dominique were released after being administered first aid at the primary health centre in Gorubathan, the headquarters of Kalimpong block III.

A villager said ever since the camp had been set up at Upper Fagu two years ago, there had been regular brawls between the volunteers and the local people. “The volunteers would often get drunk and use abusive language against us. People have at last decided to teach them a lesson,” he said.

Confirming the attack on the camp, Darjeeling police chief D.P. Singh said no complaint had been lodged with the law enforcers by either of the parties. “If we don’t receive a complaint, we will start a case on our own because it is a serious matter. The fight broke out as, we believe, both the sides were highly-strung and some of them were intoxicated,” he told The Telegraph over the phone.

Morcha vice-president Kalyan Dewan and the party’s Kalimpong unit secretary Suva Pradhan rushed to Gorubathan today, along with Allay, to defuse the situation. The Upper Fagu camp of the GLP has been running for two-and-half years. Allay said there were about 300 personnel, all boys, in the camp at the moment.

The police, however, said there should be about 75 GLP youths in the camp right now, but the figure kept changing.

Source: The Telegraph