Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO) chief Timir Das alias Jiban Singha on Saturday claimed that the surrender by the banned militant outfit’s general secretary Keshab Barman, popularly known as Kailash Koch, before the West Bengal Police was staged-managed.
In a video message, Singha claimed that the entire episode was but a “drama” and the police forced Kailash to surrender at gunpoint. The police earlier arrested him from Bangladesh, he added. Kailash Koch surrendered before the West Bengal Police in Kolkata on Thursday, along with his wife Swapna Barman, alias Jugli Koch, also a KLO rebel.
The primary demand of the KLO, which operates in Assam and West Bengal, is a separate Kamtapur state comprising six districts of north Bengal (Cooch Behar, Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri, Uttar Dinajpur, Dakshin and Malda), and four districts of lower Assam (Kokrajhar, Bongaigaon, Dhubri, and Goalpara).
Keshab on Thursday had said that he was highly influenced by the development works carried out by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. “request my brothers and sisters who are still part of the armed struggle to return to the mainstream. I have been part of the revolution for the past 16 years. But now I realise that violence cannot be the way of development.”
On Thursday, Bengal Director General of Police (DGP) Manoj Malaviya said that Keshab sent a message to the state police wishing to surrender.
“Keshab and his wife came to Kolkata and surrendered at a place which was decided earlier. Several other KLO members are going to surrender soon,” a police official said.
On June 5, a video clip of KLO chief Singha warning West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee not to interfere in northern parts of the state had surfaced. The clip reiterating the demand for a separate state of “Koch-Kamtapur” and warning of a “bloodbath”was shared when the CM was preparing for a three-day administrative tour of the region.
Also, a section of BJP leaders was calling for north Bengal to be turned into a separate state or be granted the status of a Union Territory to ensure the region’s infrastructural development at the time. “A number of MPs and MLAs from the region have backed our demand. The people of Koch-Kamatapur will form the greater Cooch Behar or Kamatapur state,” he had claimed.
The demand for Kamtapur has been around for over three decades and has its roots in the churn that began in Assam and then in Darjeeling Hills in the early and mid-980s.
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