Second meeting on Gorkhaland: Mamata Banerjee orders probe into ‘police firing deaths’, says ready to compensate kin

Besides GNLF and JAP members, a seven-member GJM delegation, including two MLAs — Amar Rai (Darjeeling) and Sarita Rai (Kalimpong) — attended the meeting. Sources, however, said all the GJM members present, barring the two elected representatives, belonged to the Tamang faction. Tamang himself attended the meeting with Anit Thapa. They were both expelled from GJM by party chief Bimal Gurung after Tamang had called off the indefinite shutdown for 12 days on August 29 — the day when the first bipartite meeting was held in Kolkata.

Asserting that her government wants a “permanent solution” to the impasse in the Hills, Mamata exhorted the Hill parties to call off their indefinite strike and restore normalcy. “Today’s meeting was positive and constructive. We will immediately restore the public distribution system. We want the bandh to be withdrawn fully and normalcy to be restored as soon as possible. The process of dialogue will continue,” she told mediapersons.

“Every citizen has a democratic right and prerogative to protest. We want peace and normalcy to be restored. Binay Tamang (representing GJM) had raised the demand for compensation for those who were killed (during agitation). We have agreed to that. They also demanded a high-level investigation for the police firing (during agitation). We have accepted that also,” she added.

Mamata maintained that the state government wants the well-being of the people. “If the people of Darjeeling face any problem, it can be discussed. We will stay together and solve the problems. There is no question of any misunderstanding among us,” she said.

After the meeting, Tamang asked the government to initiate a tripartite meeting on Gorkhaland. “We have submitted a 17-point memorandum to the chief minister. We have requested the state government to initiate tripartite talks on Gorkhaland at the earliest. All parties share this sentiment and are united on this issue,” he told mediapersons. “We have also demanded a high-level judicial inquiry into the deaths caused due to police action and compensation to the families of the victims. We have asked the state government to see that employees and workers are not politically victimised,” he added.

Further, the GJM urged the government to allow local TV channels and digital media to function in the Hills.
When contacted, Darjeeling MLA Amar Rai said: “The meeting was okay. There were some good outcomes. But unfortunately, the tripartite dialogue was not really discussed, and that was very disappointing.”

Interestingly, while the GJM initially issued a statement on the party’s official letterhead, signed by Tamang, a second statement was released later in the day — again on the official GJM letterhead — by assistant party general secretary Jyoti Kumar Rai. It said that the GJM is “disappointed with the outcome of the meeting”. After Tamang’s expulsion, Jyoti Kumar Rai had replaced him in the party.

In his statement, Jyoti Kumar said: “The meeting was along the expected lines and has not come as a surprise. It seems that the agenda of the short meeting was already decided in advance, namely to raise issues pertaining to minimum wages, bonus and salary. There was no detailed discussion on Gorkhaland or the need and modality of initiating tripartite dialogue on Gorkhaland. Therefore, we would appeal to the Centre to immediately convene a meeting on the issue at the earliest so that the stalemate in Darjeeling Hills can be addressed.”

The statement added that the GJM would like to remind the people that the “90 days of indefinite strike and the death of 11 Gorkhaland supporters was not to bargain for bonus, salary, winter allowance for teachers and development issues’’. The statement, however, welcomed the chief minister’s assurance on an inquiry into the deaths of agitators.