The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) leadership on Friday called for an indefinite strike in the Darjeeling hills from Saturday.
The GJM said the decision was taken as the authorities concerned had failed to give an explanation for the baton-charge on party supporters in Kurseong on Wednesday.
The fresh spell of agitation was also “in protest against the high-handedness of the police in the name of arresting those responsible for the murder of Madan Tamang,” GJM assistant general secretary Benoy Tamang told TheHindu over telephone.
A government order, transferring the Inspector-General of Police, North Bengal, K.L. Tamta, — a long-standing demand of the GJM — would not change the decision of going ahead with the strike, he added.
Akhil Bharatiya Gorkha League president Madan Tamang, a vociferous critic of the GJM, was fatally stabbed in broad daylight in the heart of Darjeeling town on May 21.
The killing caused a public outcry and apparently put the GJM, whose supporters were suspected to have committed the murder, on the back-foot. But the GJM reasserted itself as the principal political force in the hills by organising a massive rally a few days later where it reiterated its claim that it had no hand in the killing.
