Centre will send four additional CRPF companies to Darjeeling

Centre has told the Supreme Court, it will send four additional companies of CRPF to Darjeeling to maintain law and order. People of Darjeeling and Kalimpong in northern West Bengal have been agitating for a separate state of Gorkhaland for the almost one month. 

The apex court also said, citizens of these districts should strive to ensure peace is not jeopardized. The Centre told a three-judge bench that 11 CRPF companies were already deployed in the two districts and has decided to send four more companies to maintain law and order. The apex court was hearing a petition filed by Sikkim seeking a direction to West Bengal government and its Director General of Police to ensure smooth movement of passengers and goods to and from Sikkim through National Highway 10.

Gorkhaland agitators set on fire an



office of the Railway Protection Force, a state-run library and a police outpost on Friday. Despite deployment of Army in the region, violence continued in several place. Food supplies were severely affected in the region. Barring drug stores, all shops, schools and colleges remained closed and internet services too remained suspended since the beginning of the current spell of agitation which began on the 12th of last month. 

Meanwhile, Darjeeling’s tea planters have sought “financial support” from the central Government. All plucking and manufacturing operations in the 87 gardens in the Darjeeling have been suspended since the 9th of last month Darjeeling Tea Association (DTA) Chairman Binod Mohan told newspersons that the estimated loss to the tea industry has mounted to over 250 crore rupees.