Ghisingh walks out of a Siliguri hotel after lunch. Telegraph picture

Darjeeling/Siliguri, July 26: GNLF chief Subash Ghisingh had to flee to the plains today as anger spread in the hills over the killing of a Gorkha Janmukti Morcha activist yesterday.

Thirty-eight-year-old Pramila Sharma, a Morcha woman activist, died to bullets allegedly fired from the house of Deepak Gurung, a top GNLF, leader, yesterday.

In retaliation, early this morning, the Morcha served Ghisingh an ultimatum to clear out of Darjeeling in 15 days.

He heeded the warning, leaving for Siliguri with wife Dhan Kumari and son Mohan.

This is not the first time Ghisingh has been told to stay out of the hills, where his writ ran for over two decades.

Soon after he resigned as administrator of the DGHC on March 10, he was forced to stay put in Siliguri for a month.

Ghisingh was first driven to the army base at Jalapahar at 9.15am and then to Siliguri.

But once there, it was difficult to find accommodation for him at the National Hydroelectric Power Corporation bungalow.

He had to put up in a hotel instead.

As Ghisingh drove to Siliguri, escorted by Pemba Tshering Ola, a Morcha leader who is also the chairman of the Darjeeling municipality, the baton cracked on other leaders of the GNLF.

Police charged Deepak Gurung, the GNLF’s Darjeeling branch committee president, and 13 other leaders with Sharma’s murder.

They were remanded in judicial custody till August 8.

Yesterday, after the firing that killed Sharma, Morcha activists had torched Deepak Gurung’s house in Darjeeling.

Today, the flames spread to Kalimpong.

The homes of Dawa Pakhrin, the Kalimpong branch committee president of the GNLF, and that of Maurice Kalikote, another Kalimpong leader, were set on fire.

In Darjeeling, Morcha women activists gheraoed the court where the GNLF leaders were produced and spat on the cars that took them to jail.

Morcha president Bimal Gurung said: “There were a number of blockades, but I told Ola and our supporters to let Ghisingh through.”

Sitting in the Siliguri hotel, Ghisingh said he had left Darjeeling as there was “tension for the past two days”.

“I felt that if I remained in Darjeeling there would be more tension. I will decide when to return after a few days. I will not comment on the demand for Gorkhaland. I will do so only after the Centre and the state express their views,” he said.

Ghisingh said the GNLF was very much a force in the hills.

Asked why he and his party leaders were silent on the Morcha’s latest step of moving him out, Ghisingh said: “We are waiting and watching. Silence is politics.”