Three suspected terrorists held in West Bengal

SILIGURI - Three suspected terrorists of the Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO) have been arrested from this West Bengal town, police said Saturday.

The police raided the house of Indrajit Roy, one of the militants, in Patiramjote area of Matigara here Friday night and arrested him along with two other insurgents.

One of those arrested, Tirtha Burman, was a hardcore militant. He had been trained in Chittagong of neighbouring Bangladesh, Darjeeling district police superintendent D.P. Singh told reporters.

Tirtha Burman was the north Bengal in-charge of the KLO, which has been demanding creation of Kamtapur state comprising six districts in the northern part of the state and nine others in Assam.

While Tirtha Burman hails from Habibpur in Malda district, the other arrested Pratap Burman has two houses in Malda and South Dinajpur districts of north Bengal.

Thirteen rounds of bullets, a 9 mm pistol and mobile SIM cards of north Bengal and Assam were seized from them.

The KLO had been weakened after the Bhutanese army demolished its camps on its soil in 2004. However, it was now trying to regroup and the three were involved in abduction and extortion to raise money for reorganising the group.