Dawood Merchant freed from Dhaka jail

“Dawood Merchant was released around 4:30pm yesterday [Sunday]; he walked out of prison alone as no one came to receive him,” Senior Jail Superintendent Jahangir Kabir told the Dhaka Tribune on Monday. Merchant was arrested in Brahmanbaria in November 2009 for trespassing and possessing a fake Bangladeshi passport and was sent to Kashimpur jail in Gazipur. In November 2014, he was sent to Dhaka Central Jail after he was arrested – only four days after being released on bail – under Section 54 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which gives police the right to arrest anyone under suspicion. Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal at a press briefing in the Secretariat yesterday said the Indian High Commission would decide how Dawood  Merchant would return to India. “Dawood Merchant has completed his term and so he has been released. Now he is free to move anywhere,” the home minister told reporters. “If he wants to live here, he has to acquire visa from Bangladesh government, otherwise he will not be allowed to live here,” he added. Asked whether police would monitor Merchant, Kamal only said the Indian High Commission would decide what to do about that. Merchant was sentenced to life imprisonment in India in April 2002 for killing Gulshan Kumar in Mumbai on August 12, 1997. He illegally entered Bangladesh after being released on parole in April 2009 to visit his sick mother. Since 2013, the Indian government has been pressing Bangladesh to fast-track his extradition. On November 11 last year, Anup Chetia, leader of the Indian separatist group United Liberation Front of Assam (Ulfa), was handed over to the Indian authorities. India then returned Nur Hossain, the prime suspect in Narayanganj seven-murder case. Since then, rumours spread that Merchant might be handed over to India in exchange of notorious Bangladeshi criminals arrested in India and currently under Indian law enforcers' custody. The process could not take place at the time as he was accused in two cases. Later, he was released by the courts and he finally walked out of prison on Sunday. However, the jail authorities and the Ministry of Home Affairs said that he was released as he had fulfilled his sentence.