The Centre will soon initiate peace talks with the Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO), a proscribed terror outfit, the chief negotiator said on Sunday.
“The peace talks would be initiated soon by the Centre. We are waiting for the right time,” said Debkumar Saikia, the former advocate-general of Assam who had initiated the talks with the outfit on behalf of the Centre.
Saikia was at Mainaguri in Jalpaiguri on Sunday to attend an event where around 300 people from different districts of Bengal, Bihar and Assam congregated to attend a meeting of the Kamtapur State Demand Committee.
“Today, we changed the committee into a council. It will work for our longstanding demand for a separate Kamtapur state. Altogether, 78 people from different places have been included in the council,” said Tapati Mallick, who was nominated as president of the council.
In the late 90s, a group of Rajbanshi youths led by Jibon Singha, the self-styled chief of the KLO, had formed the outfit in the Alipurduar district to launch an armed struggle over the demand for a separate state.
In 2022, Assam chief minister Himanta Biswas Sarma proposed peace talks and Singha responded. In January last year, he walked into Assam from Myanmar with some of his cadres. Since then, he is believed to be staying in Assam.
“There has been some progress in the peace talks. We are expecting a positive result,” Saikia said.