Anup Chetia, general secretary of the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA), detained for 16 years, has petitioned the government to send him back home and cancel his prayers for political asylum in Bangladesh.
“The ULFA leader now wants to return home and get his prayer he submitted earlier for political asylum cancelled,” said Brig Gen Ashraful Islam Khan, the inspector general of prisons (IG-Prisons).
The IG-Prisons told the Dhaka Tribune that the application of the ULFA leader has been forwarded to the home ministry.
A senior jail official of Bangladesh, who requested anonymity, told the Dhaka Tribune that in a one-page written application addressed to the home secretary through the jail authorities, the ULFA leader on May 13 expressed his desire to return to India, his home country.
“I have been under imprisonment for years despite the fact that my jail term expired in 2007. How much more time do I have to suffer in jail? I earlier sought political asylum, but I am no longer looking forward to it; free me and let me go back home,” Anup’s petition reads.
The founder general secretary and commander-in-chief of the armed wing of the ULFA Anup Chetiya was arrested in the capital’s Adabar on December 21, 1997.
He has been staying in a cell of Rajshahi Central Jail although his jail term ended on February 25, 2007.
He was sentenced to three-year rigorous imprisonment with a fine of Tk5,000 for illegally staying in Bangladesh and carrying forged Bangladeshi passports and foreign currency.
In addition, another court jailed him for four more years for illegal entrance in Bangladesh.
Meanwhile, Anup Chetia has sought political asylum in Bangladesh three separate times -- in 2005, 2008 and in 2011.
On December 7, 2008, he also wrote to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, urging it to grant him refugee status and political asylum in Bangladesh.
Since his arrest, India has been asking the Bangladesh government to hand over Chetia in different bilateral meetings.
Although the ULFA leader was first arrested on March, 1991 in Assam, he was released by then Chief Minister Hiteswar Saikia.
The ULFA has entered into formal peace talks with the Indian government after a 32-year-old violent insurgency movement. On September 3, 2011, the group signed the Suspension of Operation pact with the government.
As the Bangladesh government turned down his prayer for political asylum, his lawyer also filed a writ petition, which is now pending with the High Court.
Moreover, India has been trying to take Anup Chetia back and pushing Bangladesh for his deportation. India and Bangladesh signed the extradition treaty on January 28, 2013.