News

Thousands walk as Citu runs riot - 90-year-old forced out of ambulance

The Telegraph

Siliguri, Oct. 22: Three vehicles were ransacked, the tyres of at least 10 others were punctured and a 90-year-old was forced to come out of an ambulance as the Citu today went ahead with its transport strike.

The ambulance was intercepted at Dagapur here around 2.30pm by picketers, who alleged that the passengers inside were “healthy”. The vehicle was turned on its side and its windscreen broken.

Brother Thomas, a faculty member of Goethals Memorial School in Kurseong, and James Joseph and Valentine Gahatraj of the same institution, were told to come out of the vehicle with their luggage.

“Bother Thomas is a 90-year-old diabetic and an asthma patient. He was under treatment at a nursing home in Siliguri and was discharged today,” Joseph said. “We were taking him back when the picketers stopped us. By the time we convinced them who we were, the ambulance had been smashed. They had forced us out on the pretext that all of us were healthy.”

Fifteen minutes later, Citu arranged for transport to take Thomas and his companions to the hills.

Half an hour later, a bus from Darjeeling was stopped at the same spot. Thirty passengers inside were asked to come out and the luggage taken down from the roof. The bus was pelted with stones, its glass panes shattered in five minutes. The brick-batting stopped only after Swapan Ghosh, the inspector-in-charge of Pradhannagar police Station, reached the spot.

Yesterday, chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee had appealed against strikes and had said that in the plains some organisations were trying to create a situation like the one existing in the hills. He were referring to Amra Bangalee and the Shiv Sena which had called bandhs.

Today, the labour wing of Bhattacharjee’s party, the CPM, forced thousands of local people and tourists to cover on foot at least 4km to enter Siliguri or reach Panchanoi on way to Sukna. Vehicles to the hills were available from Panchanoi from 11am to 2pm.

Besides Dagapur, pickets were set up also at Salugara and Khaprail, the other entry points to the hills.

The Citu had initially called a 72-hour transport strike to protest against the assault of its member drivers at Dilaram near Kurseong on October 9 allegedly by Gorkha Janmukti Morcha supporters for not displaying “GL” number plates. The drivers demanded security cover from the administration to ensure that vehicles could ply with “WB” number plates in the hills.

Around 10.30 am, the first vehicle was ransacked. It was a Tata Spacio with “GL” number plates (GL-01A-3320), on way to Siliguri. The driver fled the spot as the picketers smashed windscreens and the window panes.

A 50-member tourist team from West Midnapore was told to walk to Matigara from Darjeeling More with luggage.

“This means a distance of 5km. There are so many woman and children with us. We came down from Darjeeling in a reserved bus which was stopped at Darjeeling More The bus we had come in from Midnapore is parked at Matigara,” said Sukumar Jana of the team.

Andy and Ian Coleman from London had to walk 3km from Panchanoi to Darjeeling More. “The driver suddenly told us to get down. We have no clue what the problem was,” Andy said.

Some Citu supporters on learning that vehicles from hills were carrying passengers from Panchanoi went there around 2pm and punctured the tyres of at least three vehicles. The tyres of some autorickshaws, plying on the Sukna-Siliguri route, were also deflated.

The strike was withdrawn after the district administration assured Citu that drivers travelling to the hills on “WB” number plates would be provided with security.

Later when news reached the plains that the Morcha has decided to refrain from forcibly writing “GL” on vehicles and “Gorkahaland” on government signboards, Ajoy Chakraborty, the president of the Citu-affiliated Darjeeling District Taxi and Private Car Drivers’ Association, thanked the hill outfit.

“Any diktat or its forcible execution can only aggravate tension and is undesirable, especially when tripartite talks have started,” said Chakraborty. He condemned those who ransacked vehicles and said they were not members of his union

© 2008 The Gorkhaland Chronicle.