By IANS,
Guwahati : Two senior separatist leaders of the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), arrested in Bangladesh, are now in the custody of Assam Police, officials Friday said.
According to officials, ULFA “foreign secretary” Sasha Choudhury and “finance secretary” Chitraban Hazarika were being flown in Friday by a special army helicopter from Gokul Nagar Border Security Force (BSF) outpost in Tripura, bordering Bangladesh.
“The two ULFA leaders were handed over to Indian intelligence officials by Bangladesh police, who brought the duo to Gokul Nagar and made them surrender before BSF officials for technical reasons as India and Bangladesh do not have an extradition treaty,” an official told IANS, requesting not to be named.
Earlier Friday, an official in Agartala said Border Security Force (BSF) troopers had detained two senior ULFA leaders along the India-Bangladesh border in Tripura.
“Top ULFA functionaries Chitraban Hazarika and Shashadhar Chowdhury were detained by our patrol party Thursday night along the Bangladesh border in western Tripura,” an official said on condition of anonymity.
Inspector General (Special Operations Unit) of Assam Police Pradeep Kumar is reported to have accompanied the two separatist leaders in the army helicopter, flown to a secret location somewhere in Assam for the two’s questioning by teams of state and central intelligence agencies.
The two top militant leaders were arrested by Special Branch sleuths of Bangladesh Police in the intervening night of Nov 1 and Nov 2 from downtown Dhaka.
Meanwhile, there are reports that Indian intelligence agencies have already convinced the two ULFA leaders to revive the deadlocked peace process with the top militant leadership.
“Our doors for peace talks with the ULFA are open, but they should first shun the path of violence and surrender their weapons,” Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi told journalists Friday although he refused either to deny or confirm the handing over the ULFA militants to the state police.
There are also reports of Bangladesh stepping up its offensive against ULFA leaders holed up in the country.
“We have information that even family members of ULFA chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa and commander-in-chief Paresh Baruah’s wife were kept under surveillance by Bangladesh police in Dhaka,” the official said.
Baruah, according to intelligence agencies, had fled Bangladesh about a month ago and is now in China’s Yunnan province, while Rajkhowa had shifted base from Dhaka and was hiding in some secret location in Bangladesh itself.
India has repeatedly claimed that separatist militants in its north-eastern states were operating out of bases in Bangladesh with several of their leaders staying in safe houses in Dhaka.
Bangladesh had earlier denied such allegations. But the Awami League government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has assured New Delhi of its cooperation to evict Indian separatists from Bangladesh.
Last month, Bangladeshi State Home Minister Shamsul Haque Tuku was quoted as saying that the government had directed the law enforcement agencies to crack down on ULFA bases in view of intelligence reports that the group was planning major strikes in Dhaka.
Amal Das, a senior ULFA leader, was arrested by security forces in Dhaka last month as part of a crackdown, media reports from Bangladesh said.
The group’s leader, ULFA general secretary Anup Chetia, has been imprisoned in Bangladesh since 1997 due to the absence of any extradition agreement between the two countries, despite Delhi’s repeated appeals to hand him over for trial in India.