Feb. 5: The genesis of today’s violence lay in a meeting that the Forward Bloc held in Jalpaiguri on January 1.

The Bloc’s Jalpaiguri secretary, Gobinda Roy, made it clear that day his men might resort to violence to press for their demands. “Our movement will no longer be limited to rallies, meetings, road blockades and memorandums, but it will take a more extremist path. You are free to interpret our statement,” he said.

The demands were a separate ministry for north Bengal, bar on the entry of big companies in retail and 100 days’ work under the rural employment guarantee scheme among other things.

Roy, a Bloc state committee member, surprised everyone by also demanding that five Jalpaiguri Assembly constituencies reserved for Scheduled Tribes be brought under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution, a status being sought for the Darjeeling hills.

“It will ensure more financial and other assistance to the backward, tribal-dominated area,” he said.

The plan to mount pressure on the state and Centre was announced at a party convention at Kanchenjunga Stadium in Siliguri on January 14. Bloc national secretary Debabrata Biswas told the meeting: “We will launch a statewide movement on January 28. On February 5, our members will resort to a law-violation movement in the six districts of north Bengal. There would be rallies from Cooch Behar to Malda on February 25 and... an intensive movement in Siliguri on April 4.”

The party stunned many five days later by expressing solidarity with the Nepalese people who had been thrown out of Bhutan after being branded infiltrators. Bloc leaders wanted to go to the camps housing the refugees and hold meetings there. The police foiled the plan.

Cooch Behar MP Hiten Burman said the violence was a “spontaneous outburst of pent-up resentment”.