Police foil terror attack in Siliguri, CID sleuths held

Siliguri, Aug 25: Police today foiled a major terror attack in this town, gateway to Northeast, uncovering nine bombs and arresting two KLO rebels and as many CID constables in a series of raids.

''We have issued an alert in all the six north Bengal districts following the incident,'' Inspector General of Police(north Bengal) Kishan Lal Meena told reporters here.

He said the police and army bomb squads swung into action, following a tip off, and recovered five powerful bombs from two petrol pumps, situated next to each other, and a brief case containing five bomb monitor units, copper wire and some devices.

''The bombs were powerful enough to blow off parts of the town had these come into contact with the underground oil reservoirs,'' Mr Meena said. Each petrol pump has about 20,000 lts of fuel.

The bombs were taken to nearby Teesta river and defused immediately. This happened at 6 am before work began at the pumps.

The Howrah and Five Star petrol pumps are situated on the Hill Cart Road, the main throughfare of this town. While three bombs and the brief case were found in the first pump, two bombs were found in Five Star petrol pump, Mr Meena said.

''Minutes later, police seized a Maruti van near the New Jalpaiguri railway station and arrested two CID constables and a Kamtapur Liberation Organiation(KLO) rebel. They were carrying three live bombs and some gelatin sticks,'' added Mr Meena.

He said CID sleuths Biswajit Majumdar and Kailash Singh Roy were posted in Siliguri.

Police also arrested driver Puran Biswakarma, who is a KLO rebel.

Following interrogation another KLO rebel Paritosh Roy was arrested from his hosue at Hyderpara. A bomb was also recovered from his house, Mr Meena said.

The IGP said the bombs were planted by the KLO, as four similar bombs had been recovered from Salkumar High School in Jalpaiguri on August 14.

Police said an employee of the Howrah pump first noticed three bombs planted near the pump site. A fresh search yielded two more from the nearby Five Star petrol pump, which created panic across the town, police said.

UNI