Banerjee, Goswami may parley on Jalpaiguri blast

Kolkata: The Jalpaiguri bomb blast, suspected to have been triggered by KLO leaving six people dead, is expected to figure in talks between Union home secretary Anil Goswami and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in Kolkata on Tuesday. A top government official said this today when asked whether activities of Kamtapuri Liberation Organization, would be discussed in the talks which would mainly focus on the situation along West Bengal’s border with Bangladesh in view of the 5 January general election in the neighbouring country.[caption id=“attachment_1314751” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. PTI[/caption] State chief secretary Sanjay Mitra and home secretary Basudeb Banerjee would also attend the meeting. The government has said it will take strong measures to tackle violent acvitivities of the KLO a central committee member of whose political wing KPP (Kamtapur People’s Party) has been arrested from Cooch Behar in connection with the blast. Nubas Burman, the general secretary of KPP central committee, was arrested from his home at Toofanganj in West Bengal’s Cooch Behar district yesterday, Japlpaiguri superintendent of police Amit P Javalgi said today. Burman is the second person to be arrested in connection with the blast, the other having been arrested at Moynaguri in Jalpaiguri district. Banerjee said that after coming to power in 2011, the government had started a process of releasing political prisoners, as a result of which about 250 prisoners were set free and many KLO militants figured in that list. “But we cannot sit idle the way attempts were being made to create fresh unrest in north Bengal. Therefore, instructions have been given to take strong steps by identifying those who are directly or indirectly involved in these,” she said. A state government official said the state government had already sent a report to the Union home ministry on the 26 December blast in Jalpaiguri. The Union home secretary’s meeting with the chief minister will take place in the backdrop of Mamata Banerjee’s strong reservations over the introduction of the Land Boundary Agreement Bill in the Rajya Sabha recently. Banerjee has categorically said West Bengal government will not implement it and that the state stands to lose more land under the agreement. PTI