A day after Dhaka handed over top Ulfa leader Anup Chetia, one of Bangladesh’s most wanted criminals Nur Hossain was released on Thursday from a jail in Kolkata and is likely to be deported to Banglad
A day after Dhaka handed over top Ulfa leader Anup Chetia, one of Bangladesh’s most wanted criminals Nur Hossain was released on Thursday from a jail in Kolkata and is likely to be deported to Bangladesh to face trial in connection with the killing of seven people in 2014. The move signals close cooperation on the security front between the Modi and Sheikh Hasina government after inking of the historic Land Boundary Agreement. Hossain was ordered to be deported to Bangladesh by a court in Kolkata on December 15. However, he was released from Dum Dum central jail Thursday evening. Top officials in New Delhi said he will be sent back to Bangladesh soon. The Bangladeshi national was wanted for the killing of seven people in Narayanganj district adjacent to Dhaka.
On Thursday, Bangladesh home minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal was quoted in local media reports there as saying that “we will bring him back when the government of that country tells us he has been freed...We will receive him at the border just the way we left Anup Chetia there”.
He, however, said this should not be seen as a quid pro co and “Chetia had been handed over to India as per his own wish”.
The seven massacre victims were first kidnapped by assailants from river port city of Narayanganj on April 27, 2014, and their nearly decomposed bodies were retrieved from the Shitalakya river five days later.
The incident had spa-rked a massive public outcry in Bangladesh as the families of the victims al-leged several personnel of the elite anti-crime Rapid Action Battalion were involved in the murders.
It had embarrassed PM Sheikh Hasina’s government because Hossain is a local Awami League leader and prompted it to immediately sack two Army and Navy officers.
Hossain and two other Bangladeshi nationals were arrested on June 15 in Kolkata for not having valid documents for entering India.
All three are currently in police custody. Bangladesh had handed over banned Ulfa’s founder member Chetia on Wednesday to India.
