To Catch A Terrorist

In short, he lived comfortably with his wife, two children and two other occasional guests for more than a year until his world of high, secure life suddenly fell apart. On December 21, the police raided the six-storey building in Dhaka's Shaymoli residential district and arrested him and his guests. Police sources say 'Solaiman' and two of his associates entered Bangladesh through Chunaru Ghat border in northeastern Habiganj about a year and a half ago. They had lived in different places before renting the flat in Dhaka.

"We didn't have the slightest clue about his real identity until his arrest last month," said Abul Bashar, landlady and neighbour of Golab Barua alias Anup Chetia, general secretary of the outlawed ULFA. He managed the home and foreign portfolios of ULFA. Chetia rented the flat in the name of John David Solaiman in October 1996, identifying himself as an executive of a foreign NGO.

"We grew very fond of the family, especially his cute little daughter," the landlady continued. In fact, since his arrival, Chetia endeared himself to almost all other neighbours by his amiable, charming personality. "He used to play badminton with us whenever he had time," added Masud, Bashar's 16-year-old son. "We really enjoyed his company. He's an excellent man." His arrest has clearly saddened his neighbours and most of them pray for his well-being.

A team of the Dhaka police's Special Branch first became aware of his presence through an informer. According to the landlady, three persons, later found to be belonging to the Special Branch, came to the house expressing interest about renting a flat. "They came quite a number of times with the same purpose in the last six months," said Bashar. "We didn't realise they were actually collecting information about John David until the raid last month."

Curiously, there's no plausible explanation as to how Chetia's wife and two children escaped during the police raid. Speaking from her hideout, Promila alias Madhuri, wife of the ULFA leader, described her husband as a 'great man' fighting for the emancipation of the oppressed Assam people. "I'm proud to be his wife and we'll continue to support him until our people are freed from the clutches of the Hindi-speaking Indian ruling class," she told the daily Banglabazaar Patrika last week.

Meanwhile, the Bangladesh authorities appear to be in a dilemma over how to respond to India's request that Chetia be handed over, as there is no extradition treaty between the two countries. "At this stage we really do not know how to accommodate the Indian request," admitted a Bangladesh foreign ministry official. While acknowledging the legal difficulties of handing over the separatist leader, Deb Mukharji, the Indian high commissioner in Dhaka, said: "We still hope Bangladesh will find some way to send him back as he must stand trial for committing crimes on Indian soil."

Officials in New Delhi, however, are quite upbeat. They say that the fact Dhaka informed them on January 2 about Chetia's arrest is a very positive sign. Said a senior home ministry official: "We do not anticipate any problems and he should be in India by end-January.In the past the Bangladesh authorities have arrested militants wanted in India but we have not been informed; and these people have been let off. If they didn't want to hand Chetia over to us, they wouldn't even have informed us."

Indian officials agree that extradition is a politically sensitive issue in Bangladesh but are hopeful that the matter will be sorted out satisfactorily. "Bangladesh has not refused to hand over Chetia to us. All these reports appearing in the media in India are wrong. We are, in fact, going to send a team to Dhaka soon with the relevant documents, including the original warrants, to present our case in the court there," the home ministry official added.

바카라 웹사이트Chetia is wanted in India on a host of charges, ranging from sabotage to abduction to murder. However, he does not seem to be connected with the Sanjoy Ghose kidnapping and most of the warrants against him are prior to August. "In any case, the CBI is investigating Sanjoy Ghose's kidnapping and we will know if he is involved directly in any way with it," notes an official.

New Delhi is reportedly considering getting him back by invoking the recent treaty on stopping cross-border insurgency signed between Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina and former Indian prime minister Deve Gowda in 1996. Then there is a SAARC convention on the suppression of terrorism, to which both India and Bangladesh are signatories. Besides, the Interpol's red alert can also be resorted to.

But Bangladesh officials indicated that it won't be an easy task for Dhaka to hand the separatist leader over to New Delhi because of certain political implications. The ULFA high command in Assam is said to have requested Bangladesh not to concede to the Indian demand and even threatened dire consequences if it did. More significantly, sympathy for the captured leader is growing in Bangladesh where an influential section has voiced concern for his safety. The main opposition leader, former prime minister Khaleda Zia, is on record as having declared the separatist campaigners in the Northeast as freedom fighters.

In other words, any pro-New Delhi initiative by Dhaka would be construed as buckling under pressure and its political fallout could be disastrous, for it would give the opposition another lever to inflame anti-India sentiment. The ruling Awami League, which is already embroiled in a bitter confrontation with Khaleda's BNP for signing the peace treaty on the Chittagong Hill Tracts, is unlikely to take any hasty decision on the ULFA leader, independent observers say. So, for the moment, Chetia and two of his associates Laxmi Prasad Goswami and Babul Sharma, also said to be members of ULFA, are under detention.

The home ministry says Chetia will be tried in Bangladesh on three charges: illegally entering the country, unlawful possession of foreign currency and violation of passport acts. During the raid the police recovered two Bangladeshi and one South African passports, computer discs reportedly containing sensitive information, foreign currency worth more than two lakh takas and a driving licence in his assumed name from dhaka's Road Transport Authority. He is said to have travelled to Geneva last year to attend a conference on a Bangladeshi passport under the name Abdul Aziz. India had then protested over him being given a visa.

Golab Barua alias Anup Chetia has been a fugitive since 1992 when the Indian government put him on the wanted list for various crimes. He is widely known to be the chief architect behind the separatist movement in Assam. The search for the fugitive intensified after the Interpol, following a request by the Indian government, issued a 'Red Corner' alert six months ago urging all member countries to arrest him forthwith.But now that he's been arrested, his return to India may not be all that smooth.