The Bangladesh government has indicated willingness to hand over Ulfa general secretary Anup Chetia to India two or three days before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s historic visit to Dhaka next week. Dr Singh will be in Dhaka on September 6-7.
Authoritative security sources in the Union home ministry said while Bangladesh was still working out the modalities and had not set an exact date for the handover, stumbling blocks such as the absence of an extradition treaty had been resolved.
Mr Chetia, who is Ulfa boss Paresh Baruah’s cousin, is reputed to have single-handedly built up Ulfa from scratch and is believed to have actually brought Baruah into the outfit and made him its “commander-in-chief”. His deportation is expected to give the ongoing peace process a major boost: his expected inclusion in the pro-talk faction led by the outfit’s chairman, Arbinda Rajkhowa, will complete Baruah’s isolation within Ulfa.
Mr Chetia, who was arrested in 1997, is in the protective custody of the Bangladeshi authorities. He finished his sentence in 2003, after which he filed a petition for political asylum in Bangla-desh.
The government there subsequently rejected this petition, which was pending before that country’s Supreme Court.
The security sources said the matter of Dhaka handing over Mr Chetia to India had come up during Union home minister P. Chidambaram’s recent visit to Bangladesh and it was pursued ever since. The pro-talk faction of Ulfa has also sought his presence in the ongoing talks.