Even as the situation in Darjeeking continues to be tense, the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha has called for its version of Dandi March to protest a police raid on its office

DARJEELING (TIP): For the second successive time this week miscreants struck at the dead of the night to vandalise and ablaze government properties around Darjeeling as the demand for a separate state continued to roil the hill station.

On June 17 (Saturday) around 1 am, suspected Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) supporters set fire to Goke II gram panchayat office under Bijanbari block about 25 km away from Darjeeling. The first floor of the building was completely gutted.

The attack came after a relative quiet day in the hills. Local Trinamool leaders said that on Friday night Morcha supporters set up roadblocks on two roads that connect Gok with Darjeeling.

On Saturday morning, GJM protesters have planned to take out a ‘Dandi march’ on the lines of the one that Mahatma Gandhi undertook in 1930.

The rallies are supposed to start from different points of Darjeeling and converge at the GJM office at Patlaybas that the police raided on Thursday. Police are unlikely to allow the protest rallies because the situation is already tense. Most GJM leaders are still in hiding to evade arrest.

On Saturday morning the hills remained completely shutdown, the third day of the indefinite bandh called by the GJM after the police raided their office on Thursday.