Dhaka: Bangladesh is set to return the detained stalwart of the separatist United Asom Liberation Front (ULFA), Anup Chetia, to India after 16 years in jail in the neighbouring country, officials said.Prison officials said Chetia was moved to the high security Kashimpur Central Jail on the outskirts of the capital on Friday from a prison in northwestern Rajshahi days after he sought repatriation along with two other detained comrades.
“Wait,” home minister Mahiuddin Khan Alamgir told Gulf News without further elaboration as asked exactly when Chetia was expected to be deported.
But a home ministry official, preferring anonymity, said the ULFA leader was moved to Kashimpur as his petition was being reviewed.
Chetia, the ULFA’s founder, sought political asylum in Bangladesh three times in 2005, 2008 and in 2011, after Bangladesh police arrested him in December 1997. He was subsequently given seven years in jail by two courts for cross-border intrusion, carrying fake passports and illegally keeping foreign currencies.
Despite the expiry of his term Chetia was jailed under a 2003 High Court directive asking authorities to keep him in safe custody until the government made a decision on his asylum plea.
But a senior prison official on June 21 told Gulf News: “Mr Chetia has expressed his willingness to return to India and we have forwarded his petition to our home ministry for consideration.”
He said Chetia, who was kept at a “division ward” meant for socially privileged inmates under jail code, also wanted the repatriation of two fellow detained ULFA leaders, Laxmiprasad Goswami and Babul Sharma, who were kept in a separate prison in Bangladesh.
Chetia’s repatriation came as media reports said most ULFA leaders preferred negotiation with Indian authorities after decades of armed conflict for self rule.
In a related development, Bangladesh in January this year signed an extradition treaty with New Delhi mutually agreeing to deport wanted “criminals” hiding or lodged in jails in each other’s country.
Under the agreement, only people with charges such as murder, culpable homicide and other serious offences, would come under the deal while offenders of small crimes with sentences of less than a year would not.
The home minister at that time, however, said Chetia’s issue was pending for a judicial decision as he had sought Supreme Court intervention after Dhaka rejected his petition seeking asylum in Bangladesh after his 1997 arrest.
Alamgir, the home minister, also cited the provision of keeping political asylum seekers out of the purview of the treaty and added that once the Supreme Court directive was issued the government would take an appropriate decision.
Bangladesh in September last year said it had decided to return Chetia and that the home ministry was examining the legal options for his return.
“Take it, the procedure is underway,” Alamgir said at that time.
A Bangladesh court earlier issued an arrest warrant against fugitive ULFA’s armed wing chief Paresh Barua to face a trial in a case related to a 2004 weapon haul when the outfit tried to smuggle 10 truck-loads of weapons to their hideouts through Bangladesh territory.
Several other ULFA stalwarts including their chief Arbind Rajkhowa were reportedly arrested in Bangladesh and subsequently handed over to India in recent years but Dhaka officially confirmed none of the incidents.
For years New Delhi has accused Bangladesh of being a safe haven for its separatist elements, an allegation refuted by Dhaka. While in recent years India has appreciated their neighbour’s initiatives as Bangladesh said it would not allow any such elements to use its territory.
(GulfNews)
