Guwahati, Jan 14: Finally, the leaders of the Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO) return to India to the negotiating table. A team of senior leaders of the banned organization arrived in India to sign a peace deal with the Indian government.
The KLO leader Jeevan Hing is currently being received by a team of Assam Rifles on the Indo-Myanmar border. He is accompanied by the Indian Intelligence Agency. The Assam Rifles will be taken into custody by the Assam Police.
KLO chairman Jibon Singha Koch said in a statement on January 11 stated that “Honouring and upholding the wishes and aspirations of the people of Koch-Kamtapur, the leadership of KLO will reach India within a very short time to participate in direct bilateral peace talks with India government to restore the status quo of the historic separate state of Kamtapur.”
He added that “The process of bilateral discussion between the Indian government and KLO on the issue of people of Koch-Kamtapur has reached its final stage under the able leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah with active meditation of Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. It has been decided to solve the long-standing demand of reformation of separate state Kamtapur as raised by Koch-Kamtapur people and its various representative organizations based on the historic treaty signed on August 18, 1949, between erstwhile India government and Independent Kamtapur.”
While continuing the statement he additionally said that “All-round cooperation, constructive suggestions from all classes of people of Kock-Kamtapur and various nationalistic organizations in resolving the issue of long pending demand of separate state of Kamtapur during the ensuing bilateral peace talks with India government.”
On August 18, 1949, there was an agreement between independent India and independent Cooch Behar. This was the Cooch Behar Merger Agreement, the focal point of which was the declaration of Greater Cooch Behar or Kamtapur state as a C-category state.
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After 70 years of the signing of an agreement, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah have taken initiative under the ambit of the constitution to grant C-category state status to Kamtapur or Greater Cooch Behar state.
It is also believed that the KLO leadership might team up with influential leader Ananta Rai Maharaj, who is believed to have clout in the Koch-Rajbongshi-dominated North Bengal and several districts of Assam.
The KLO, which has been active in the western part of Assam and North Bengal and was once an ally of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) in Bhutan and Myanmar, expressed its interest in peace talks with the government in December 2021.
The KLO was born in 1995 in an armed struggle for a separate Kamtapur carved out of the adjoining part of Assam and West Bengal.
