The West Bengal administration on Thursday received reports about Jibon Singh aka Timir Das, the self-styled chairman of the Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO), a separatist underground organisation, being arrested in Bangaldesh. A senior bureaucrat said the news about the KLO leader’s arrest was “almost confirmed.”

Jibon Singh had managed to flee from Bangladesh along with several other KLO leaders during a 2003 Indo-Bhutan Army operation against KLO and ULFA cadres who had set up camps in the jungles of Bhutan. State police sources revealed that Jibon had several murder charges pending against him in North Bengal.

Jibon, who hails from Kumargram in Jalpaiguri district, had emerged as the chairman of the KLO in 1995. The objective of the organisation was the carving out of a separate Kamtapur state comprising six districts of Bengal and four of Assam with members from the Rajbanshi community taking the lead in its formation.

The KLO had a strategic tie-up with the ULFA and continues to be patronised by the insurgent group. Security agencies claim ULFA used to share its camp in the Bhutan with the KLO and had even carried out certain killings in North Bengal, including the 2003 Dhupguri attack where a CITU office was targeted.