As though the ongoing problem in Darjeeling was not enough, nearly moribund Kamtapur liberation Organisation seemed to raise its ugly head once again in North Bengal as a bomb allegedly planted by the KlO militants at Alipurduar went off killing a police man and injuring two others including another cop.
The KlO wants a separate Kamtapur State including three to four districts of North Bengal.
The bomb reportedly kept on a bicycle — at Chowpathi in the sub-divisional town bordering Assam — and discovered by a passerby went off when the bomb-squad officers, who had come from Siliguri, tried to defuse it reportedly without taking sufficient precaution. Alipurduar is in Jalpaiguri district.
This is the second such incident in the State with the first one taking place a few years ago at lalgarh when two cops were killed while
trying to defuse a bomb kept inside a tiffin box.
The Thursday’s bomb was tied with timers, SDPO B Thakur said, adding the “bomb might have been
kept by the KlO.” Investigations were on.
This was second such incident in the past fortnight or so when a low-intensity blast went off inside a Bhutan-bound bus injuring about a dozen passengers near Barobisha not far from Alipurduar.
The Kamtapur liberation Organisation movement was suppressed a few years ago with active cooperation of Bhutan Government that ran its training camps in the region. Several KlO leaders were either arrested, or surrendered or eliminated.
However, the fresh demands for a separate State came up after the Gorkhaland movement restarted in Darjeeling.