If information from Bengal Home Department sources are to anything to go by then the Kamtapur liberation Organisation the militant arm of the Kamtapur People’s Party was playing double cross with the State Trinamool Congress leadership.
The arrest of Subas Burman, a KPP central committee member, and a group of seven people responsible for firing at a moving bus in Malda have reportedly startled a section of the police. Some of those arrested were reportedly in touch with senior Trinamool Congress leaders apparently to evade the eyes of the security forces, sources said.
Burman was the second person to be arrested in the last week’s Jalpaiguri cycle-bomb blast that snuffed out six lives. The Malda and Jalpaiguri incidents took place within 24 hours of each other.
The Kamtapuris are demanding a separate State comprising six North Bengal districts of Malda, North Dinajpur, South Dinajpur, Jalpaiguri, parts of Darjeeling district and Coochbehar.
Burman the general secretary of the KPP central committee was arrested from Coochbehar in connection with the blast. Police sources said he along with some other KPP leaders had discussions with some Trinamool leaders even a few weeks ago where they demanded better treatment and rehabilitation of the freed and surrendered KlO leaders and workers a la the surrendered Maoists.
In fact released KlO leader and the party’s second-in-command had told in a press release from a hideout that the Government was meting out differential treatment with the surrendered Maoists and KlO cadres.
“If such things continue to happen the fragile peace process would break down and the party rank and file would return to their old ways even if the leadership refrained from doing so” he said.
Burman who was arrested in 2002 and released later before being arrested from Toofanganj in Coochbehar on Monday said he had been framed “as the police have no clue in the Jalpaiguri blast case.”
Meanwhile, while Union Home Secretary Anil Goswami was expected to meet top Bengal Government officials in Kolkata on Tuesday the bomb explosion from the railway tracks at Barsoi in Katihar district of Bihar had thrown the Bengal Police into a tizzy sources said.
Top officials felt it could be the handiwork of the KlO who were trying to disrupt train services between South Bengal and North Bengal that runs through a small section of Bihar in Barsoi and Kishanganj. The area is also sensitive because of its proximity to Bangladesh border.
The entire issue was going to figure in Tuesday’s discussions, officials said.