The National Commission for Women (NCW) Chairperson Rekha Sharma has claimed that there was "no democracy" in the Darjeeling hills and that the district administration was playing the role of a "robot".
The NCW chief was on a four-day visit to the Darjeeling hills in view of her office receiving a number of complaints of police atrocities on women during the 104-day shutdown in the region last year.
"The police here has been working as an agent and they are getting orders from somewhere else. After hearing the stories (from women), I can say that there is no democracy in the hills," Sharma told reporters here before leaving for Delhi yesterday.
Alleging that the police had played a "brute negative role" against women during the 104-day strike, she said she did not think that she was in a part of independent India.
The indefinite strike by the Bimal Gurung-led Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) in the Darjeeling hills demanding a separate Gorkhaland state began on June 15 and it was lifted on September 26 last year.
When contacted, senior ministers and ruling Trinamool Congress leaders Partha Chatterjee and Subrata Mukherjee declined to comment in this regard.
The NCW chief claimed she was discouraged to visit the hills by the administration and there had been efforts so that she cannot meet the complainants.
"However, I met around 150 complainants. There were heaps of reports, pertaining to gross misconduct against women, which had accumulated at my desk. I was concerned and decided to set foot on ground zero to take stock of the situation," she said.
"I think that the administration is working on someone's direction here. They are working like a robot. There is no freedom for them," Sharma said adding that she will send the complaints to the Centre and the President.
She urged Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to visit the hills and meet the complainants.
The NCW chairperson said the Darjeeling district magistrate had initially refused to meet her, but did so later after her tweets went viral on social networking sites.
"The DM had no answers to my questions.... I was not satisfied," Sharma said.
District Magistrate Joyoshi Dasgupta said, "There is no question of non-cooperation. I went and answered each question. The instructions given by her are being followed."
Sharma said she wanted to meet the district SP and IGP but they were on vacation.
Meanwhile, a group of women workers of the GJM, now headed by Binay Tamang, protested against the NCW chairperson's visit on Tuesday.
The coordinator of the district committee of the GJM's women's wing, Kalpana Tamang, said they protested as the NCW chairperson did not show up when the hills needed her during last year's agitation.
The GJM central committee had suspended Bimal Gurung and appointed Tamang the party's new president.
BJP MP of Darjeeling, S S Ahluwalia, had last month appealed to the chief minister and Gurung to resolve the Darjeeling problem through political dialogue.
The West Bengal police had claimed that Gurung and some of his aides were absconding after being booked under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act in connection with the violence during the 104-day strike.
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