India: Incidents and Statements involving
Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO) : 2008

On January 8, Pravat Das, a militant of the Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO), was arrested from Dakshin Parokata under the Samuktala police station limits in the Jalpaiguri district, reports Telegraph. According to Police sources, the militant was absconding since 2002. He was later remanded to 14 days of jail custody by the additional chief judicial magistrate of Alipurduar. Read less...

Four militant outfits operating in the Northeast, including Manipur People’s Liberation Front (MPLF), Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO), Tripura People’s Democratic Front (TPDF) and the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), asked the people of the region to boycott the forthcoming Republic Day on January 26. Read less...

A 17-hour general strike enforced by militant groups on January 26 to boycott the Republic Day celebrations has failed to impact the States of Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, and Tripura, according to Hindustan Times. Officials said public and private vehicles were plying normally with people participating in the national day celebrations. Five militant groups, including the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), had called for a 17-hour general strike that began at 1 am on January 26 to boycott the Republic Day. The other groups are the Kamatapur Liberation Organisation (KLO), the Manipur People's Liberation Front (MPLF), the All Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF), and the Tripura People's Democratic Front. Read less...

On April 26, an arms smuggler and a linkman of the Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO), identified as Pradip Das alias Phagua, was arrested from his house at Botun in Kumarganj of West Dinajpur district, reports Telegraph. He was subsequently produced before the chief judicial magistrate in Balurghat on April 27 and remanded to police custody for seven days. Police sources said that Das was regularly smuggling arms to Bangladesh for the KLO and also helped the militants enter and leave Bangladesh. Read less...

A joint team of the Army and Assam Police neutralised a United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) transit camp at Bangshijhora hill in the Dhubri district on April 30, reports Telegraph. An unnamed senior police officer said this camp was frequently used by the ULFA, National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) and Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO) militants, since they have some common areas of operation and used this vital transit camp not only for shelter but also for ammunition supply. Ten rounds of live ammunition of 12 bore pistols, seven rounds of 12 bore fired cases, eight live and five spent rounds of ammunition of AK-47 rifles, 18 live and seven spent rounds of .22 pistols, two blank detonators, 500 grams of explosive, one improvised explosive device (IED), wires, one 7.62-mm magazine of LMG and one rotating block of AK-56 were seized from the camp. A Global Positioning System device, a digital diary, two blank extortion notes signed by the ‘commandant of 709 battalion’ of the ULFA, Hira Saraniya, a Chinese camera, 20 kilograms of rice and one kilogram of Bengal gram were also recovered. Read less...

An engineer, Ajay Kumar, working on a highway project on the East-West Corridor and a contractor, Newa Singh, were abducted near Chirang on their way back from a Kokrajhar camp by the All Kamatapur Liberation Force (AKLF) militants on July 2-night, according to Telegraph. Read less...

On July 2, West Bengal inspector-general of police (law and order) Raj Kanojia said that the intelligence wing of Bengal police has found enough proof to suggest that the Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO) is trying to regroup in three districts of north Bengal. "From inputs received from the intelligence wing, we have come to know that a fresh batch of KLO militants is trying to reorganise in Jalpaiguri, Malda and parts of Dinajpur districts," Kanojia told reporters at Siliguri. He added that a number of other insurgent groups existed in north Bengal. "There are so many issues here. KLO and border-related issues are among them. I have discussed the issues with local police officials. We are getting information about Maoist activities as well and are alert about it," he said. Read less...

The All Kamatapur Liberation Front militants on July 20 demanded INR five crore for the release of three employees of a construction firm, whom they had abducted on June 30. Read less...

Troops shot dead one All Kamatapur Liberation Front cadre, Umananda Ray, at Tirimarighat in the Chirang district on July 27-night, reports Assam Tribune. Read less...

Four militant groups - the Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO), Manipur People’s Liberation Front (MPLF), Tripura People’s Democratic Front and the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) - on August 10 asked people in the Northeast region to boycott the celebrations of Independence Day on August 15, reports Imphal Free Press. Read less...

Telegraph reports that on September 9, a suspected militant of the Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO), identified as Ramanath Roy was arrested from Laukuthighat village in Baxirhat of Cooch Behar district, along the West Bengal-Assam border. A revolver, three rounds of ammunition and documents were seized from him. Police sources said that the militant, s resident of Chhotoguma in Assam’s Kokrajhar district had entered Cooch Behar district to recruit cadres. District Superintendent of Police Devendra Prakash Singh said, "The arrested militant had returned to India in March after receiving arms training in Bangladesh. We arrested him after receiving a tip-off." Police sources said Ramanath had revealed a few names of KLO militants presently based in Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh. Read less...

An unidentified Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO) militant was arrested from an unspecified place in the Kokrajhar district on September 19-night, according to Telegraph. Read less...

The Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO), which was made weak during the military operations in Bhutan in December 2003, has started regrouping with active support from the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), reported Telegraph. Ramanath Roy, one of the two militants arrested at Baxirhat in the Cooch Bihar district in September 2008, confessed during interrogation that the outfit, in a desperate attempt to renew its activity, have resumed training at the Chittagong hill tracts in Bangladesh with active help from ULFA. Read less...

Army personnel arrested two Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO) militants, identified as Manas Das alias Manu and Biswajit Sarkar, from Gossaigaon in the Kokrajhar District, reports Telegraph. A 9-mm pistol, two magazines, five rounds of live ammunition, 310 grams of brown sugar, two cell phones, a Permanent Account Number card and diaries were recovered from their possession. Read less...

The Subsidiary Intelligence Branch (SIB) of West Bengal said on December 18 that an eight-member team, including Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI) terrorists from Pakistan and Kamatapur Liberation Organisation (KLO) cadres, has sneaked into the State through the Bangladesh border, reports Times of India. According to the SIB, the group left their hideout in Bangladesh on December 15. They had taken shelter in the house of Haider Ali, a Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) cadre of Bangar, in the Ranisankhoil area of north Bangladesh. Intelligence agents have found that the group paid INR 2000 as rent per day for their stay in Haidar's house. Two HuJI leaders from Pakistan, Alimuddin Quraishi and Jaimuddin Ali, apparently led the group from Ranisankhoil to help them cross the border. They are learnt to be carrying a considerable amount of fake cash, arms and ammunition and set out with the plan to cross the border at Maheshgaon or Hemtabad, near Raigunj in North Dinajpur. An unidentified source said that these groups are "consistently" planning attacks in Kolkata and another location in south Bengal, and even in Siliguri and New Jalpaiguri. Read less...

Intelligence sources reported on December 26 that the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s external intelligence, was planning to explode bombs in major towns of West Bengal including the capital Kolkata, reports Express Buzz. Sources in the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) confirmed that a group of Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI) terrorists has made repeated attempts to enter India recently from Bangladesh. "There is a possibility that some HuJI terrorists have already crossed over with arms and ammunition and are heading to team up with Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO), Indian insurgent group, to carry out lethal terror strikes in West Bengal during end-December and early January," sources said. Read less...