Cops stand near a burning car during clashes with GJM supporters in Darjeeling on Thursday. AFP

Darjeeling, June 15

The West Bengal hills saw widespread violence on Thursday as irate Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) supporters torched a police outpost and stoned security forces in angry reaction to a police raid on party chief Bimal Gurung’s house in Darjeeling.GJM activists, with their Nari Morcha in the vanguard, virtually surrounded the police force as they were returning after the raid on Gurung’s house in Patlebas, and started hurling stones at the police from elevated areas in the hills.Several policemen were injured in the stoning. In response, the security forces lobbed tear gas shells at the protesters after a baton charge failed to control the situation. Large police reinforcements arrived in the area. Some vehicles, including one belonging to a media house, were set on fire.In neighbouring Kalimpong district, alleged GJM supporters torched the Pedong police outpost. Accusing the state government of “high handedness and oppression”, GJM general secretary Roshan Giri appealed to the Central and state governments to intervene and sort out the “political problem”.“The GJM has not started the violence in the hills. The state government did. They are trying to suppress us using the police. To protest against the police high handedness, we are calling for an indefinite general strike in the hills,” Giri said.Terming the GJM’s call for complete shutdown illegal and a crusade against people, state Tourism Minister Gautam Deb vowed to stop the strike at any cost. — IANSCPI blames Mamata

• The Communist Party of India on Thursday blamed West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee for the ‘violent’ agitation for a separate Gorkhaland state, saying her ‘unnecessary promise’ earlier was the cause for the fresh round of protests
• “Unnecessarily, Mamata Banerjee had given them some sort of hope on statehood earlier. That’s the reason it (the agitation) has again come up. Otherwise, during the Left Front government, this (agitation for separate Gorkhaland) was not violent, except for one time”, CPI general secretary S Sudhakar Reddy said