United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) leader Anup Chetia was produced in court on Wednesday. He was arrested by the CBI and remanded in 6 days of transit remand. he will be taken to Guwahati later.
Chetia was handed over to the Indian Border Security Forces (BSF) after being lodged in Dhaka jail in Bangaldesh for the past 17 years. The handover was done at the personal intervention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and through active involvement of NSA Ajit Doval, according to officials.
The 48-year-old is the founder and general secretary of the banned ULFA, and is wanted for killings, abductions, bank robberies and extortion activities.
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.
The significant development comes days after the deportation to India of Chhota Rajan, one of country’s most-wanted criminals who was on the run for 27 years.
(With PTI inputs)
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