Top ULFA leader Anup Chetia, a fugitive for over two decades, was today handed over to India by Bangladesh, a significant development that comes close on the heels of deportation of Mumbai underworld don Chhota Rajan from Indonesia.
48-year-old Chetia, founder general secretary of the banned United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA), has been wanted for killings, abductions, bank robberies and extortion activities.
The insurgent leader, whose original name is Golap Barua, was handed over by Bangladesh to Indian officials this morning at the personal intervention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and through active involvement of NSA Ajit Doval, highly-placed sources told PTI here.
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 the country’s most-wanted criminals, who was on the run for 27 years.
Chetia was in Bangladesh ever since he fled India in early 1990s. He had been arrested in March 1991 but the then Assam Chief Minister Hiteshwar Saikia released him from jail, following which he fled from India, official sources said.