Cooch Behar police have nabbed a trained militant of the Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KN faction) from Assam on Tuesday.

Manojit Barman, a resident of Takaomari village under Boxirhat police station of the district, was nabbed from Dispur of Assam by a police team.

Sources said that on November 4, information reached Boxirhat police station that two suspected crude bombs with electric wires were spotted at a vacant plot in Takaomari. A police team reached the spot. Later, the bomb disposal squad was engaged to defuse the explosives.

Last year on November 5, a leaflet was released by the KLO (KN) through a news portal where the outfit claimed it had planted the bombs and it would soon launch a series of bomb attacks in north Bengal.

“The leaflet, which was signed by D.L. Koch, the self-styled chief convener of the outfit, said attacks would be organised against business groups and individuals not supporting the outfit economically and morally,” said a source.

After Jeevan Singha, the self-styled KLO chief, reached Assam from Myanmar in response to the proposal for peace talks initiated by the Centre and the BJP government in Assam, the KN faction of KLO became active.

A police probe revealed the faction sent letters to businessmen in Assam, Alipurduar and Cooch Behar to extort money.

A case was registered under sections of the IPC and the Indian Explosives Act.

“During the probe, the police learnt about Manojit Barman, whose house is around 150 metres from the spot where the bombs were found, as a suspect. It was found that in January 2023, he had been to Arunachal Pradesh to train as a KLO cadre and returned after two-and-a-half months. Ever since the bombs were found, he went missing,” the source added.

“On Tuesday, he was nabbed from Assam’s Dispur. On Wednesday, he was produced in court in Cooch Behar’s Tufanganj and sent in police custody for 10 days.”