A protest rally in Kurseong on Saturday. (Vivek Singh)

Kurseong/Darjeeling, Nov. 25: Praveen Choudary of Kakkarvitta, a border town in Nepal, was on his way to a boarding school in Darjeeling town to take his son home for the winter holidays.

However, GNLF supporters out to enforce the party-sponsored indefinite bandh in the hills stopped Choudary’s hired van at Dilaram, around 10km from Kurseong, this morning.

“I had heard that schoolchildren and their parents would be left out of the purview of the bandh. But the supporters stopped me and damaged the vehicle. Now I don’t know what to do,” said Choudary over phone from Dilaram.

Finally, in the afternoon, Choudary was told to go back to Siliguri, without his son, who studies in Mount Hermon School in Darjeeling.

Choudary was not alone: nearly 200 guardians who came from different places to take back their wards from schools in Kurseong and Mount Hermon — the only institution in Darjeeling where the winter break has already started — got stuck at Kurseong Motor Stand.

Police hired four vehicles to send around 40 of them (some with their wards) to Siliguri. A few others started walking downhill along Rohini Road. GNLF supporters said the others would not be allowed to leave till 6.30pm.

There are more than 15 residential schools in Kurseong — some of which are still holding their annual exams — with no less than 2,000 boarders.

Jayanta Pal, the principal of Victoria Boys’ School in Kurseong, said only six of the 200 or so boarders are yet to leave hostel. “We will wait till tomorrow for their guardians to come, before holding a meeting with the administration and GNLF leaders,” he said.

In Darjeeling, the president of the local branch committee of the GNLF, Deepak Gurung, replied in the negative when asked if educational institutions would be kept out of the purview of the general strike.

The unrest in the hills has also hit the tourism industry hard. “There is not a single tourist staying at our hotel today and bookings for December have been cancelled,” said a hotel-owner who did not want to be named.

The district administration has set up a special control room and residents can call up two numbers (0354-2252520 and 9733008001) if they face any inconvenience because of the shutdown.