All India Gorkha League president and Gorkhaland proponent Madan Tamang was seriously injured after being attacked with sharp weapons by unidentified assailants in Darjeeling town on Friday.
Nicol Tamang, main accused in the murder of All India Gorkha League president Madan Tamang, escaped from CID custody in West Bengal's Darjeeling district, police said. Tamang was arrested on August 16 and kept in CID custody at Pintal village near Siliguri after he was produced in Darjeeling district court the next day.
The Calcutta high court on Thursday asked the Central Bureau of Investigation to file a progress report within four weeks on the disappearance of Nicole Tamang, the prime accused in the murder of Gorkha leader Madan Tamang.The CBI informed the court that it has already taken up investigation into Nicole's disappearance.All India Gorkha League chief Tamang was murdered in Darjeeling on May 21 last year.
The West Bengal government ordered an inquiry into the killing of All India Gorkha League president Madan Tamang in Darjeeling on Friday.
CID sources said the inspector in charge of the case, Ardhendu Sekhar Pahari, was removed and departmental proceedings were being drawn up against him over the incident. Nicol is a close aide of GJM president Bimal Gurung and a central committee member of the party
The meeting was attended by the GJM, the GNLF, the Gorkhaland Rajya Nirman Morcha, the Bharatiya Gorkha Parisangh (apolitical) and the Communist Party of Revolutionary Marxists.
Among the national parties, the Congress, Aam Aadmi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Communist Party of India-Marxist opposed the proposal, while the Bharatiya Janata Party and the National People's Party supported it.
In a climbdown, Gorkha Janamukti Morcha, spearheading an indefinite bandh in Darjeeling hills for the last 10 days to demand Gorkhaland state, on Mondy said it would not use force to enforce the shutdown but a 'janata curfew' would be held as announced from Tuesday.
'If the nub of India's sensitivity over the Chinese presence in Doklam is the enhanced threat to the Siliguri Corridor, a vital link to the northeast, does it serve the national purpose to have the districts along it, and then much of the tribal northeast, in turmoil?' asks Shekhar Gupta.
'For a long time Pakistan dreamt that India would break up and that it would be the predominant power in the region,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).