New Delhi/Guwahati: India and Bangladesh will discuss the modalities of handing over to India top United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) militant Anup Chetia during home secretary-level talks this week.
Chetia, who is in a Dhaka jail since 1997, had in a petition in May said that he wanted to be repatriated to India.
“Bangladesh and India are working out how to get it (Chetia’s repatriation) done,” an official source told IANS in Delhi.
The issue would figure in the July 18-19 home secretary-level talks in Delhi, the source said.
But the source clarified that Chetia’s repatriation was not linked to India handing over two top Bangladeshi criminals in Indian jails. “The two are not linked,” the source said.
Two Bangladeshi criminals, Subrata Bain and Sajjad Hossain, are in Indian jails.
Bain is in a Kolkata jail. He was arrested in Kolkata last year on charges of carrying fake currency and illegal arms. Hossain is in Delhi’s Tihar jail. He is wanted for several murders, including the killing of eight student leaders
in 2000.
Both the criminals had targeted Awami League leaders in Bangladesh including Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
The anti-dialogue faction of ULFA has appealed to Bangladesh not to use Chetia’s extradition to India as a bargaining tool to secure the custody of Bangladeshi criminals.
India and Bangladesh had signed an extradition treaty earlier this year. Bangladesh’s Additional Home Secretary Kamal Uddin Ahmed, who will be part of the talks, is quoted in Bangladesh dailies as saying that both sides would discuss several issues. “But our main focus will be on the repatriation of the Bangladeshi criminals hiding in India from where they often control the underworld of the country,” Ahmed said.
“We will pressure India to take steps to destroy Phensidyl producing factories in Indian territory along bordering areas. India has promised to do so several times on different occasions,”
he said. Chetia is wanted in India for various crimes including murder, kidnapping and extortion. He was arrested in Assam in 1991, but was freed by the state government.
On December 21, 1997, the ULFA general secretary was arrested from Mohammadpur in Dhaka for illegally entering Bangladesh and for illegally carrying foreign currency and a satellite phone. He is under detention after completion of his jail term. Chetia sought political asylum in Bangladesh on three occasions —in 2005, 2008 and
in 2011. IANS
