Chirang (Assam): The Assam Police on Wednesday arrested three Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO) members in Basugaon ahead of the third phase of Lok Sabha elections.
According to officials, acting on a tip-off, the police carried out a raid at a hotel on the town’s station road on Wednesday night and nabbed the three members identified as Robin Barman alias Lambu, a resident of Hekoipara in Basugaon town, Utpal Rai alias Pankaj Koch, a resident of Gosaigaon village in Kokrajhar and Dhananjay Barman of Nayitamara in Bongaigaon district.
According to the police, the arrested members of the outfit had been demanding money from the people of Basugaon town for some time. Following the arrests, information was provided by the arrested individuals during the interrogation, the police conducted a search operation and recovered a bomb buried on the banks of the Champavati River near Kasudola village in the wee hours of Thursday.
Police sources said the members of the outfit hid the bomb on the banks of the river to carry out a subversive act. Notably, the police arrested four KLO members in connection with the grenade hurling incident at Dotma in Kokrajhar a few days ago. The arrested members were involved in demanding money on the orders of KLO leader Hariprasad Rai, who is currently in Bangladesh.
Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO) is a militant outfit, which has been active in northeast India since 1993 in demand of a separate Kamatapur Nation carving out from West Bengal and Assam. Its proposed territory comprises six districts of West Bengal and four contiguous districts of Assam.
The KLO was formed to address problems of the Koch Rajbongshi people, who are settled in areas of North Bengal and lower Assam, such as large-scale unemployment, land alienation, perceived neglect of the Kamtapuri language, identity and grievances of economic deprivation.
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