Siliguri, April 21: The Jalpaiguri Municipality and the Jalpaiguri district police have launched separate exercises to collect information on people renting houses in and around the town.

The move is significant in the wake of twin explosions that rocked Champasari on April 3, killing three alleged bomb makers, followed by a series of hauls that led to the recovery of a number of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and timers. Most of the IEDs were found in rooms or houses that had been let out.

In Siliguri, the municipal corporation had launched the verification drive on tenants earlier. Contrary to Jalpaiguri where tax collectors will visit every household at regular intervals to gather information, landlords in Siliguri have to submit details having taken a form from the local police station.

“Considering the steady inflow of people from other parts of the state and the country to Jalpaiguri, we felt that it was necessary to maintain a database,” said Mohan Bose, the chairman of the Jalpaiguri municipality. The municipality is also planning to print a request, addressed to house owners, on the reverse of tax receipts, he said.

The Jalpaiguri district police have been requesting people over the pubic address system since Saturday to submit photographs and identity proofs of their tenants. No forms are available and the police are banking on landlords to come forward with the information spontaneously.

Today, too, a crude bomb was recovered by the Kharibari police from the Tukuria forest, 35km from Siliguri. It was later detonated by the CID’s bomb squad. The number of splinters suggested that more bombs had gone off there earlier.

Chuang Tamang, the range officer of Tukuria in the Kurseong forest division, said the explosive was spotted last evening by some villagers. The police said the bombs might have been kept there by petty criminals.