KLO threatens armed struggle

The banned Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO) that was set up with the goal of creating a Kamtapur state with six districts of North Bengal and four districts of lower Assam announced on Tuesday that it would launch an armed struggle to secede from India.

The banned Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO) that was set up with the goal of creating a Kamtapur state with six districts of North Bengal and four districts of lower Assam announced on Tuesday that it would launch an armed struggle to secede from India.

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A three-page statement signed by KLO general secretary Kailash Koch mentioned two political slogans — “Indians and Bengalis are not allowed in our ancestral land,” and “Liberate Kamtapur from Indian colonial rules.”

The text also called upon the supporters of KLO “to wage an armed national struggle and to liberate ourselves from the Indian political bondage is the only fitting response to these daunting challenges.”

The press release comes five days after the IED blast in the north Bengal district of Jalpaiguri killed five prompting a crackdown from the Mamata Banerjee administration.

The statement dated December 28 was distributed to the media on Tuesday evening.

If the release is any indication, it might have ominous portents for Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee who had a torrid time in 2013 to tame an increasingly hostile Gorkha Janamukti Morcha and its leader Bimal Gurung who wanted to carve out a separate state of Gorkhaland with the lone district of Darjeeling.