Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed has agreed to oblige India once again by finalizing the extradition of ULFA general secretary Anup Chetia (alias Golap Baruah). The extradition has been scheduled to take place by December, notwithstanding the UPA Government’s inability to deliver on the exchange of land enclaves to settle the border between the two countries or the issue of Teesta waters, both of which are crucial in view of the forthcoming general elections in that country.
Although the UPA was able to engage the Opposition in covert diplomacy to get Sonia Gandhi’s Food Security and Land Acquisition legislations through Parliament in the monsoon session, no serious efforts were made to reciprocate Bangladesh’s goodwill gestures in shutting down terrorist camps and deporting wanted insurgents, despite India having a major stake in the election of a friendly regime in Dhaka. As a result, the India-Bangladesh boundary agreement of 1974 remains unimplemented to this day.
In a swap deal initiated earlier in July, Dhaka agreed to hand over top ULFA militant Anup Chetia in exchange for two top Bangladeshi criminals, Subrata Bain and Sajjad Hossain, currently in Indian jails. Bain, who entered India illegally, was arrested in Kolkata last year for allegedly carrying fake currency and illegal arms. He had previously been arrested in Nepal, but had managed to escape, and is now lodged in a Kolkata prison. Hossain, who is being held in Delhi’s Tihar Jail, is wanted in several cases of murder in Bangladesh.
Both Bain and Hossain are wanted by the Awami League Government for alleged involvement in attacks against its top leadership. Bain is an accused in the August 21, 2004 grenade attack on Sheikh Hasina’s rally in Dhaka. Their exchange has been facilitated by the extradition treaty signed between India and Bangladesh during Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde’s visit to Dhaka in January this year.
Anup Chetia, former ULFA general secretary, and two companions were arrested in Bangladesh on December 21, 1997, for entering the country illegally, carrying forged Bangladeshi passports, and having illegal possession of the currencies of three countries. When his jail term expired in 2007, Chetia appealed to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) for refugee status and political asylum in Bangladesh. A local court placed him in protective custody in Rajshahi jail.
However, Chetia later withdrew the request and agreed to return to India after New Delhi began talks with a faction of the ULFA leadership led by Arabinda Rajkhowa. It is believed that on returning to India he will join the ongoing dialogue between Central emissaries and the Rajkhowa faction. This will help the Centre to neutralise the influence of the banned outfit’s commander-in-chief Paresh Barua (incidentally Chetia’s cousin) who has spurned all peace overtures and continues to operate from bases in Myanmar after he was pushed out of Bangladesh.
Sources claim that Paresh Baruah has of late shifted base to China and is more involved in arms smuggling than insurgency. But there could be more than meets the eye in this, given the close link between illicit arms and insurgency, and Beijing’s hyperactivity on certain frontiers with India. It is pertinent that as recently as August 2013, Myanmar (which is politically close to Beijing) made the staggering decision to send its Army five kilometres across the border in Manipur’s Chandel district, where the 87 Light Infantry was found trying to clear the jungle and lay a platoon base camp in Holenphai village that Myanmar claims lies within its territory. Holenphie village is around 100 km south-east of Imphal, and village chief Lalkholun Haokip stumbled upon the Myanmar Army preparations while on a routine inspection of the area.
The soldiers initially refused to answer Indian queries regarding their actions, and their officers refused to cease the construction work. Indian Army sources said that the dispute arose after three pillars demarcating the boundary between India and Myanmar disappeared mysteriously. Eventually, however, the Myanmar Army agreed to stop construction and ceased the forest clearance activities as well. But clearly Paresh Baruah’s presence in China, if true, cannot be unconnected to these mysterious developments on the sensitive northeastern border.
Chetia, meanwhile, is wanted in a case of allegedly ordering, abetting and instigating the murder of the wife, driver and personal security officer of former Dibrugarh SP AK Mallick in 1989. But the Government may withdraw the charges if he joins the peace talks, as has been done in the past with former militants. The Centre is also trying to initiate talks with the Ranjan Daimary faction of the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB).
Niticentral.com, 12 September 2013
http://www.niticentral.com/2013/09/12/hasinas-gift-anup-chetia-to-be-extradited-132225.html