DARJEELING, India, May 16, Reuter: Three people including a policeman, were killed in an attack on police camps in this Himalayan city by some 500 Gurkha guerrillas, a senior police officer said on Monday.
The police official, who asked not to be identified, said Sunday’s fighting made more remote the chance of a peaceful solution to the Gurkha demand for their own state within India.
Subhas Ghising, head of the Gurkha National Liberation Front (GNLF), concurred and repeated that he was no longer interested in a government offer of an autonomous hill council to which he had earlier agreed. He told Keuters at his Darjeeling home police fear his arrest could cause greater violence —that he had gone back to his original demand of a Gurkhaland for a people originally from Nepal.
I had earlier agreed to the hill council because there was scope for it,” he said. “With the police atrocities on our supporters, no ‘one will agree to the council now. Our supporters are ready to fight to the end and get a state”.
The police official said the GNLF guerrillas, two of whom were killed, were driven off when they attacked police camps in Central Darjeeling and that 23 were captured during a pursuit through the suburbs.
Article extracted from this publication >> May 20, 1988
