By IANS,
Siliguri : Three Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO) militants have been arrested in West Bengal’s Jalpaiguri district, police said Wednesday.
The troika, involved in extortion from tea garden owners and other businessmen from north Bengal by issuing threats, were picked up from Moynaguri and Rajganj blocks of Jalpaiguri Tuesday night.
Pabitra Roy, Anukul Singh and Aditya Roy – all in their late 20s or early 30s – wre remanded to police custody for six days by a local court.
Cash amounting to Rs.37,000, a motorcycle, mobile phones, some papers related to KLO and flags were seized from their possession.
Siliguri’s Additional Deputy Police Commissioner K.S. Rajkumar, who led the team which nabbed the three, said they disclosed during interrogation that KLO supremo Jivan Singh and other top leaders regularly visited Nepal. Contact details of several KLO leaders were found from them.
Rajkumar said the senior KLO militants were trying to reorganize the outfit from their hiding place in Jhapa of Nepal.
He expressed apprehension that the KLO was getting the backing of the Maoists in Nepal.
A separatist outfit, the KLO has been demanding a Kamtapur state comprising six districts – Cooch Behar, Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri, North and South Dinajpur and Malda – of West Bengal and four contiguous districts of Assam – Kokrajhar, Bongaigaon, Dhubri and Goalpara.