A woman walks with the help of crutches at Darjeeling Motor Stand where she could have taken a vehicle had there been no blockade by the Morcha on Friday. Picture by Suman Tamang

Siliguri, Jan. 22: The Darjeeling district Left Front will ask the state government to ensure that the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha does not set up any blockade on the national highway between Siliguri and Sukna so that students attending the educational institutions on the stretch are not affected.

The Morcha has started two-hour road blockades in the hills and the Dooars as part of its statehood agitation.

“We will ask chief secretary Asok Mohan Chakrabarti to pass on instructions to the district administration to ensure it,” front district convener Asok Bhattacharya said here today. “There are a number of English-medium schools, colleges and other educational institutions on both sides of NH55 on this stretch (Siliguri-Sukna). The blockades are affecting studies in these institutions. Also, the students are getting late in reaching their schools and colleges because of traffic congestion.”

The front accused the Morcha leadership of hoodwinking the hills people. “They (Morcha leaders) are unnecessarily creating disturbances. Activities like setting up blockades are nothing but gimmicks to hoodwink the hill residents, who do have a sentimental attachment to the statehood issue,” said Bhattacharya, also the urban development minister.

Contacted in Writers’ Buildings, home secretary Ardhendu Sen said: “If normal life is disrupted on a regular basis, the state will have to take firm steps to ensure normality.”

Authorities of the educational institutions located till Sukna, 10km from here, have also expressed apprehension over the blockade.

“Our semesters will commence after January 26. If the blockades continue till then, the students and the staff will face problems. Many of them avail local transport and if the traffic comes to a halt, they have to walk several kilometres,” said S. Dasgupta, the principal of Siliguri Institute of Technology, at Salbari on way to Sukna.

Sushanta Ghosh, the administrator of Gyan Jyoti College located at Dagapur off NH55, spoke on similar lines. “The situation is pretty volatile here and can change any time, causing inconvenience to the students,” he said.

The subdivisional officer of Siliguri, Rajat Kumar Saini, said he had instructed police to ensure safe passage to the students. “The inspector-in-charge of Pradhannagar police station has been asked to monitor the vehicles of the educational institutions.”

The Morcha, however, claimed that it was not blocking vehicles belonging to educational institutions, army and the ambulance. “The allegation raised by the front is baseless as we are not obstructing students or the vehicles run by the schools and colleges,” said Shankar Adhikari, the convener of the party’s Terai unit. “Not a single student has faced any inconvenience so far.”

The Bangla O Bangla Bhasa Bachao Committee iterated that it would go ahead with its scheduled Darjeeling Chalo programme tomorrow to protest the Morcha’s statehood agitation. “We will head for Darjeeling peacefully, deleting Gorkhaland from all signboards from Panchanoi onwards,” said Mukunda Majumdar, the committee president.

The home secretary said in Calcutta that he had not received any report on the Darjeeling march from the district magistrate. “However, these are sensitive things and the district administration will have to deal with it in the interest of maintaining law and order,” Sen said.