Patients suffer as bandh continues

SILIGURI, FEB. 17. Patients in hospitals are the worst-affected by the GNLF-sponsored indefinite bandh that entered its second week today paralysing life in the three hill sub-divisions of Darjeeling district amid reports of arson and violence, officials said here.

The Darjeeling District Magistrate, Mr. Anil Varma, said that the administration is now facing a crisis of oxygen cylinders, medicine and diet for hospital patients in the hills and the bandh has posed problems for bringing in these items from Siliguri.

Normal life continued to be affected with shops, business establishments, banks, post offices, State and Central Government offices remaining closed.

Bandh supporters, Mr. Varma said, had set ablaze a Siliguri-bound truck hired by the CRPF at Tingharia this morning.

The Gorkha National Liberation Front's Kurseong district president, Mr. I.N. Pradhad, told newsmen at the Paramount Hospital, where the party's chief, Mr. Subash Ghising, is undergoing treatment, that the party will review the bandh situation at a meeting here tomorrow.

Vehicular traffic resumes

Sikkim, cut off from rest of the country due to the indefinite strike in the Darjeeling hills, today got a reprieve with the agitators allowing vehicles to enter and leave the State.

The relaxation by the bandh supporters came in the wake of the meeting between the Sikkim Governor, Chaudhury Randhir Singh, and the Chief Secretary, Mr. S.W. Tenzing with Mr. Ghising on Friday at the hospital. The details of the meeting were, however, not yet known.

- UNI, PTI

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