NEW DELHI, India, June 20, Reuter: Militant Gurkhas demanding an Indian State of Gurkhaland went on a bomb and arson rampage early today in the northeastern Darjeeling region, the Press Trust of India (PTI) reported.

Army garrisons were alerted after suspected members of the Gurkha National Liberation Front cut off the district by blowing up roads and bridges. They bombed or set fire to 16 government and other offices, destroying 11 of them, PTI said.

The violence came at the start of a 13day strike in the Darjeeling strike was to protest against the failure of the Indian government to invite him to New Delhi for talks with Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

He said only Gandhi could understand the seriousness of the Gurkhaland movement he launched early this year.

Dozens of people have been killed in the Darjeeling district, an isolated finger of West Bengal that juts north towards Nepal and Sikkim, since the agitation began.

Violence spread last week to the neighboring state of Meghalaya. Three people were killed and dozens injured in clashes with police in the State capital, Shilling, as students demanded government action against Gurkhaland agitators there.

Gandhi opposes the demand for statehood for the 900,000 Darjeeling Gurkhas. West Bengal’s leftist government also refuses to negotiate with the Front. Authorities sent 1,500 paramilitary police to Darjeeling last week to help keep order during the strike. Residents stocked up with emergency supplies.

PTI said at least three bridges were blown up and roads were blocked in many places by bomb explosions before daylight that cut off Darjeeling from the rest of the State.

It said eight government offices were gutted in Darjeeling and four were damaged by bombs in Kal imping. A post office, a forest rangers’ office and a police station were also destroyed and an office of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) was damaged by a bomb.

Darjeeling police say the Gurkha Front has five clandestine military training camps and several arms factories in the district. Police say they are run by former members of the Gurkha regiments, which have won fame in the Indian and British armies.

Article extracted from this publication >>  June 26, 1987