Siliguri (West Bengal): The KLO-ULFA (Kamtapur Liberation Organisation-United Liberation Front of Assam) combine might strike during the forthcoming Durga Puja festivities in North Bengal where it is active, the inspector-general of police, Bhupinder Singh, said in Siliguri on September 24.

Singh, however, advised people not to be panicky and said that the police had made elaborate arrangement to maintain peace and law and order.

Singh, who on September 23 visited Nishiganj Market in Coochbehar district where the ultras had abducted a trader and killed four persons using AK-47 rifles on September 20, urged people to provide police with any information about the ultras to help in the uprooting of the militant base in the region.

Commenting on Nishiganj firing, the IG said that the KLO-ULFA militants might have escaped to Bangladesh with the abducted hardware trader, Gopal Debnath.

He said that as the two underground organisations were not 'safe' in Bhutan any longer what with the government's impending crackdown, they set up a base at Lalmonirhat in Bangaldesh adjacent to North Bengal.

Singh believed that the militants abducted Debnath to get ransom so that their dwindling finance could get a look-up.

However, he admitted that he was not aware if the abductors had demanded any ransom from Debnath's family.

PTI