Bangladesh hands over Anup Chetia of ULFA to India

The insurgent leader, whose original name is Golap Barua, was handed over by Bangladesh to Indian officials this morning at the personal intervention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and through active involvement of NSA Ajit Doval, highly-placed sources said. India had been repeatedly demanding Chetia’s deportation for over two decades but successive governments in Bangladesh had been refusing to cooperate citing non-existence of an Extradition Treaty. The Sheikh Hasina government finally decided to repatriate him following a written application from Chetia that he was “keen to return to India”, the sources said.

“The decision was personally taken by Sheikh Hasina in line with her policy of not allowing anti-India forces to operate from Bangladeshi soil,” the sources said.

Chetia was in Bangladesh ever since he fled India in early 1990s. He had been arrested in March 1991 but the then Assam Chief Minister Hiteshwar Saikia released him from jail, following which he fled from India, official sources said. Chetia had been arrested in Bangladesh on December 21, 1997 during Hasina’s first term as Prime Minister. He had been arrested by Dhaka police under the Foreigners’ Act and Passports Act and charged with unlawful entry into Bangladesh, besides for carrying illegal foreign currencies, firearms and satellite phone.

Chetia had been sentenced to seven years’imprisonment. However, on completion of the jail term, he preferred not to be released and sought political asylum. He remained in jail under a 2003 High Court directive asking Bangladesh authorities to keep him in safe custody until a decision was taken on his asylum plea. “Although his asylum application was turned down, successive Bangladesh governments had been reluctant to repatriate him to India even after all legal hurdles were removed,” the sources said. Even while being in jail, he maintained regular touch with ULFA chief Paresh Barua and other top leaders through his wife Rani Akhtar alias Monica.

Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi expressed hope that ULFA General Secretary Anup Chetia, handed over by Bangladesh to India, would play an important role in the peace process and said the militant leader should be handed over to the state government. “We believe that he will play an important role in the talks process. We have been demanding for extradition of Anup Chetia from Bangladesh for fruitful discussion between the government and pro-talk ULFA. It has been a demand of the pro-talk group too”, Gogoi said in a statement.