Siliguri, Feb. 5: The genesis of the violence that unfolded at Dinhata today leading to five deaths lay in a meeting that the Forward Bloc held in Jalpaiguri on January 1.

On New Year’s Day, Jalpaiguri district secretary of the Bloc and state committee member Gobinda Roy had announced that his party would no longer stick to passive movements to get the government to act on their demands.

“We will no longer keep our agitation limited to rallies, meetings, road blockades and memorandums but will take a more extremist path. You are free to interpret our statements,” Roy had told reporters.

The Bloc leader had said the “aggressive stance” would be adopted to attain a number of goals set by the party. These included the formation of a separate ministry for the North Bengal Development Council, restriction on entry of corporate groups in retail trade, ensuring 100 days’ employment under the national rural employment guarantee scheme and ending alleged police atrocities.

The state committee member had also announced that his party wanted five reserved scheduled tribe Assembly constituencies in Jalpaiguri district to be brought under the Sixth Schedule in line with the status being awarded to the Darjeeling hills.

“In Jalpaiguri, there are five constituencies, which have a predominant tribal population. These areas should be brought under the Sixth Schedule so that more financial and other assistance can be extended to the tribal population,” Roy had said.

The assertion was followed by a convention organised by the Bloc at Kanchenjunga Stadium Hall in Siliguri on January 14, where the all-India secretary of the party, Debabrata Biswas, and around 1,000 party members were present. The final plan to mount pressure on the state and Centre was finalised and announced that day.

“We will launch a statewide movement from January 28 till February 3 when our party workers will organise meetings at the village level to garner support for our demands,” Biswas had said.

“On February 5, we will organise law violation programmes in six districts of north Bengal and on February 25, a rally will be organised from Cooch Behar to Malda. All this will culminate in an intensive movement in Siliguri on April 4. Protest marches will be organised in Calcutta and Delhi in June and July,” Biswas had added.

The Bloc on January 19 expressed solidarity with the repatriation movement of the Bhutanese refugees in eastern Nepal, stunning many. The Bloc leaders, under the banner of India-Bhutan Solidarity Forum, decided to hold meetings with the refugees in seven camps in Nepal. Police, however, intercepted them at Panitanki and prevented them from entering Nepal.

Senior Bloc leader and Cooch Behar MP Hiten Burman said today’s violence was a spontaneous outburst of pent-up discontent.

“The police atrocities at Dinhata was the primary reason behind the spontaneous outburst. Other issues like the state’s indifference towards the proper implementation of programmes chalked by the North Bengal Development Council and refusal to give permission to central leaders to enter Nepal had only added to the resentment,” said Burman.