Author: Express News
Service
Publication: The Indian
Express
Date: November 14, 2000
The West Bengal police
today claimed that it has got definite evidence of the presence of some
Naga insurgent group in Kalimpong area of Darjeeling, where they were involved
in imparting arms training to Gorkha youths.
The disclosure was made
after a surprise encounter early on Monday in which two suspected Naga
insurgents and a home guard of the West Bengal police were killed in a
dense forest. Following the incident , the state government has intensified
the combing operation and sealing off of the border with Bhutan and Sikkim.
The operation has been launched in order to nab Chhatray Subbah, a Gorkha
Liberation Organization (GLO) leader based in Kalimpong who was alleged
to have brought in the Naga militants to train Gorkha youths in insurgency.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister
Buddhadeb Bhattacharya refused to identify the people who were giving the
training. He said: ``We'll not disclose the identities of the people
who were given the training and who were receiving it.'' He added: ``This
is a new development and the Centre is informed about the incident.'' Saying
that ``this is no stray incident,'' the Chief Minister added: ``The extremists
of Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri have had links with their counterparts in
the North-east.''
The episode gives a totally
new dimension to the problem of insurgency in north Bengal districts where
ULFA and Bodo militants have struck earlier. But this was the first
time that a Naga group was located in a jungle in north Bengal, bordering
Sikkim and Bhutan which had been home to other North-east insurgent groups
so far.
Monday's encounter between
a crack commando force of Darjeeling police and the Naga militants which
began early in the morning continued for about four hours at a village
called Tin Kathari. Darjeeling police claimed to have shot dead two
Naga insurgents but the body of only one could be retrieved while the other
was carried away by the group. A senior police official said that
the Darjeeling police had been tipped off about the infiltration of a Naga
group in Kalimpong. On November 9, the suspicion of the police was
further reinforced after a group of suspected Naga youths were seen by
Meteli police near Jaldhaka, an area bordering Sikkim and Bhutan.
Subsequently, the police
received information that the group was camping at Tin Kathari. Early
on Monday when a police team approached Tin Kathari forest, they were greeted
with a volley of bullets in which Lalbahadur Rai, a home guard and a guide
got killed. The security guard of the additional SP, Darjeeling received
bullet wounds on the neck and at least ten other policemen were injured.
The police team fired back and roughly about 200 rounds were exchanged
between the two sides.
The DIG (HQ), West Bengal
police, R.K. Ray said that the Nagaland police was sending a team
to try and identify the dead.
The police is now gunning
for Chhatray Subbah, one of the most dreaded militant leaders during the
early days of the GNLF movement. Subbah had fallen out from Subash
Ghisingh's GNLF soon after the formation of the DGHC and set up his own
outfit called Gorkha Liberation Organization. The suspicion of the
police on Naga involvement is also based on the fact that Subbah's first
wife was a Naga.
Subbah's GLO never grew
into a strong force. He joined the eight-party combination when R.B.
Rai broke away from the CPI(M) and urged Ghisingh to launch a fresh movement
demanding a separate state of Gorkhaland. In October, Subbah, according
to informed sources, wrote to Ghisingh urging him to step down from the
chairmanship of the DGHC and start a fresh movement for a separate state.
He also threatened that if he did not start the agitation, the GLO was
well-equipped to launch a fresh stir.
The induction of Naga
insurgents into Kalimpong, therefore, is believed to be part of his plan
to create a new militant force. Informed sources pointed out that
it was the GNLF who had actually tipped off the Darjeeling police about
the arrival of a Naga group in Kalimpong, who if not eliminated early could
have posed a potential threat to the present GNLF leadership.
