About 100 Lepchas demonstrated in front of Kalimpong police station

 Arrests spark Lepcha protest

Kalimpong/RAJEEV RAVIDAS Aug. 22: About 100 Lepchas demonstrated in front of Kalimpong police station this afternoon to protest against the arrest of around 70 members of the community in Calcutta earlier in the day for violating prohibitory orders.

The Lepchas have been agitating in Calcutta since August 9, demanding the setting up of a Lepcha development council or board to preserve and promote the community’s culture and language. Around 60 members of the community were rounded up when they were holding a demonstration near the Writers’ Buildings. They were all released later.

In a letter addressed to the Darjeeling superintendent of police, the agitators in Kalimpong threatened that the community would hold sit-in protests throughout the hills if the arrested people were not released immediately.

“We demand the immediate release of the arrested persons, failing which we will be forced to go for sit-in protests at Tricone Park (in Kalimpong) and other parts of the hills,” said the letter signed by Tashuthing Lepcha, the assistant secretary of the Lepcha Youth Organisation.

The letter was submitted to the Kalimpong police station.

More than 100 members of the community gathered in front of the police station immediately on hearing about the arrest in Calcutta earlier in the day. They shouted slogans demanding the release of the arrested persons and in favour of the setting up of the council.

“It is unfortunate that our people have been arrested for exercising their democratic rights, which includes the right to protest peacefully. Such unwarranted action by the government could prove counter productive and force every Lepcha to take to the streets,” said Azuk Lepcha, a member of the Indigenous Lepcha Tribal Association.

The demonstration began at 2pm and the agitators dispersed in an hour.

The Lepchas are acknowledged as the original inhabitants of the Darjeeling hills and believed to constitute 20 per cent of the nine lakh-odd population in the region.

The council or board that they have been demanding is a body without any territorial jurisdiction, but a system to facilitate the development process of the Lepcha community and to promote their language and culture.

The Lepchas regret that although they have been trying their best to preserve their language, literature and tradition, the government doesn’t have any policy to supplement their efforts.

-TT