KLO chief accuses Mamata govt of ‘police, political terror', TMC calls him BJP's stooge
The TMC linked the KLO chief's statement with the controversy over a notice issued by the Assam government to a farmer in Cooch Behar, alleging Singh has been acting on BJP's behalf.
In a video message shared on social media, the head of the banned outfit said: 'To all my Koch-Rajbanshis friends. The outsider Kolkata Sarkar has illegally, unconstitutionally and forcefully captured the Cooch Behar state. They are allowing infiltration of Bangladeshis, which has made Koch and Rajbanshis minorities in their own land.'
'They have been carrying out police and political terror on Koch-Rajbanshis in a planned manner for a long time… They are arresting the Koch and Rajbanshis, houses torched, and jobs and businesses being usurped,' said Singh, also known as Tamir Das
Kamtapur Liberation Organisation was formed in 1995 to wage an armed struggle for a separate state for Koch-Rajbanshis.
'I appeal to all communities of Kamtapur, Koch, Rajbanshis, Adivasis, Gorkha, Bengalis and others. Come let us all come together against this oppressive government and rescue our Kamtapuri state,' he added. TMC spokesperson and chairman of North Bengal State Transport Corporation, Partha Pratim Roy, said that the KLO chief 'is a BJP man'. 'Whenever the BJP is in a crisis in North Bengal, he shares anti-government messages. Even before the elections, he shares messages. Now, the BJP is in a crisis following the Assam government trying to impose NRC on our residents. So, he is coming out with these messages,' Roy said, referring to a Cooch Behar farmer being served notice by the Foreigners tribunal in Assam to prove his citizenship. The KLO is a banned militant outfit operating in Assam and West Bengal the primary demand of which is a separate Kamtapur state, including six districts of north Bengal (Cooch Behar, Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri, Uttar Dinajpur, Dakshin and Malda), four states of lower Assam (Kokrajhar, Bongaigaon, Dhubri, and Goalpara), Kishanganj in Bihar and Jhapa in Nepal.
The Koch-Rajbanshis. are estimated to number over 33 lakh in West Bengal, accounting for more than 30 per cent of the electorate in north Bengal.
Ravik Bhattacharya is the Chief of Bureau of The Indian Express, Kolkata. Over 20 years of experience in the media industry and covered politics, crime, major incidents and issues, apart from investigative stories in West Bengal, Odisha, Assam and Andaman Nicobar islands. Ravik won the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award in 2007 for political reporting.
Ravik holds a bachelor degree with English Hons from Scottish Church College under Calcutta University and a PG diploma in mass communication from Jadavpur University. Ravik started his career with The Asian Age and then moved to The Statesman, The Telegraph and Hindustan Times. ... Read More
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