An army patrol close to the Bhutan border in Assam’s Nalbari district on Thursday. (AFP)

Jalpaiguri, Dec. 18: The handover of the militants snared by the Royal Bhutan Army has been held up with the Indian military authorities asking police in Bengal and Assam to prepare a list of charges and cases pending against them to help in the identification.

Unofficial reports say around 450 guerrillas of the United Liberation Front of Asom (Ulfa), the National Democratic Front of Boroland (NDFB) and the Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO) have been captured by the Bhutanese forces while overrunning the camps.

The RBA will hand them over to the Indian Army, which in turn will forward the rebels to the police.

“As the identity of those who were arrested during the operation is yet to be ascertained, the Indian Army has demanded a list of militants from the police with detailed records. Once the police send the dossier to the army, it can approach the Bhutanese authorities for handing over the militants,” said a top official.

Jalpaiguri police have begun compiling the details of wanted KLO militants like Tom Adhikary, Mrinal Roy and Milton Burman. Though unconfirmed reports yesterday had suggested that Adhikary, who heads the KLO’s action squad, had been arrested, the army’s Eastern Command chief J.S. Verma said in Calcutta today the Kamtapur top gun, along with Ulfa commander Paresh Baruah, may have escaped to Bangladesh.

Amid rumours that the arrested militants could be handed over in Binnaguri, sources said divisional commissioner (north) Balbir Ram, inspector-general of police (north) Bhupinder Singh and Jalpaiguri superintendent of police Siddh Nath Gupta visited Samchi, a bordering district of Bhutan 15 km from Banarhat. The Binnaguri cantonment of the 33 Corps comes under the Banarhat police station.

Gupta denied visiting Samchi and said they had been to the border “to check out the patrolling”.

“We are in constant touch with the army. We have not received any list of the militants yet and their number is still unknown to us. The army has, however, informed us that as soon as the RBA hands over the militants to them, they will forward them to us,” Gupta said.

The police have intensified patrolling in the highways following intelligence reports that the on-the-run militants, who have split into small groups, could try and sneak into Indian territory.