50 top Indian activists handed over since 2009
By The New Nation, Dhaka
At least 50 top leaders and activists of different separatist groups of India,
nabbed by Bangladeshi law enforcement agencies, have been handed over to India
since Awami League assumed power in 2009.
Bangladesh handed over 16 Indian separatists along with their family members to
Indian authorities over the weekend, officials said yesterday.
The rebels, of the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA), were arrested by
Bangladeshi security forces from the country's north-eastern region bordering
India.
The ULFA rebels, the main rebel group in north-eastern Indian state of Assam,
have fought for a separate Assamese homeland since 1979.
Indian officials said a group of 27, including the rebels and their family
members, were handed to the Indian Security Forces by their Bangladesh
counterparts at the border outpost of Dawki in India's Meghalaya state.
The arrested rebels include some top leaders like Anjan Borthakur, who was in
charge of an important ULFA base in Bangladesh, and Anu Borgohain, who led the
group's publicity wing.
ULFA chief Paresh Barua said in a statement e-mailed to the media that "Some of
our activists have been compromised in a neighbouring country and they are now
in enemy hands."
He said some of them had indeed given themselves up to the Bangladesh security
forces with their families.
Many more have fled to India to evade capture and have been picked up by Indian
border guards and police.
High official of the Government always denied that they had not handed over any
Indian separatists to India.
Meanwhile, Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi yesterday said that the ULFA
militants, who had reportedly surrendered in Bangladesh, were with their "own
people" in the state and not in police custody.
"The militants have come into the state and are not in the custody of the state
police but in their own places among their own people," Gogoi said in Guwahati
on Monday on the sidelines of a function launching a model health project,
reports Press Trust of India.
"The militants are coming as they are interested in holding talks and this has
made us more hopeful of holding talks at the earliest," he added.
More militants were coming in and it was an indication that they want a
solution
to their grievances through talks.
"They have realised that there is no point in an armed struggle and that the
development in Assam is only possible if their problems are resolved through
talks and discussions," he added.
Asked whether talks would be held without the outfit's Commander-in-Chief
Paresh
Barua, Gogoi said that efforts were on to bring him for talks but there was a
"time limit and we cannot wait for him indefinitely".
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