Centre has decided to pull out Central Armed Police Force from Hills

DARJEELING : The Centre has decided to pull out the Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) from Darjeeling, inviting strong protest from the state government. According to sources, the Centre wants to withdraw the force from Darjeeling with effect from 15 October. Around 15 companies of CAPF were deployed in the Hills since July-end when the Gorkha Jan Mukti Morcha (GJMM) renewed its agitation for a separate state after the Union government announced the creation of Telangana. The CAPF companies deployed in the Hills comprised Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB). Late in September, the Centre pulled out the four companies of SSB, leaving behind only 11 companies of the CAPF to man the volatile Hills. But now, the Centre wants to withdraw these 11 companies as well, just after the Durga Pujas. 

To West Bengal government has reacted strongly to this. “Although there is a momentary lull in the unrest in the Hills, the situation in Darjeeling is far from stable. In fact, the GJMM has vowed to restart the agitation from 20 October after the present festive break; hence we think the withdrawal of Central troops from Darjeeling at this juncture will push the situation out of control,” said a senior official in the state Home Department. “We are in constant touch with the Centre over the matter and the state’s sentiments have already been communicated.” Up till now, the state government’s strategy has been to utilise the Central troops more for maintaining a psychological pressure on the GJMM activists ~ who intermittently indulged in arson and other forms of violence ~ rather than actual operation. “It is but for the presence of the Central forces that we could keep the National Highway 31A functional during the GJMM’s indefinite shutdown in the Hills from 3 August. 

The state government wants to keep up this physiological pressure on the agitators,” said another senior official posted in the Home Department. In view of a standing directive from the Supreme Court, keeping the NH 31A functional is a compulsion on the part of West Bengal government as the highway happens to be the only road link to the landlocked state of Sikkim. The Bengal government is also till now non-committal about any tripartite meeting on the Hills involving the Centre and the GJMM. “As per the GTA agreement it is the state government which shall convene tripartite meet periodically and as on today we have not received any communiqué from the Centre on this,” the official added. The GJMM last week claimed that the Centre has convened a tripartite meet in Delhi on 23 October.