ULFA duo, Meghen still in Interpol list
Source: The Sangai Express / (Agencies)
Guwahati, May 07 2011:
Years have passed since they were arrested, but the Interpol Red Corner notices slapped on Ulfa's general secretary, Anup Chetia, and foreign secretary Sashadhar Choudhury, and UNLF chairman Rajkumar Meghen are yet to be withdrawn.
The notices were issued against the trio when they had escaped to foreign countries.
After his arrest in November 2009, Choudhury was lodged in the Guwahati Central Jail from where he was released on bail in January this year.
Meghen, too, is lodged in the same jail after being arrested by National Investigation Agency sleuths in 2010.Meghen had said he was arrested by Bangladesh intelligence officials in Dhaka on 29 September, but the NIA had claimed that the chief of the oldest militant group in Manipur was caught in October somewhere in Bihar.
The Interpol website has still mention about the Red Corner Notice against Meghen's name as "Notice Control No : A 621/11-1998" .
His offences are mentioned in the website as "criminal conspiracy, murder, kidnapping, assault, robbery, war against the state and violation of the Firearms Act" .
In the website, Chetia's name is mentioned in the wanted list even as he was arrested in 1997 in Bangladesh and is currently lodged in a Dhaka jail.
The notice control number against Chetia's name has been mentioned as 'A-341/ 7-1997', while the cases against him have been mentioned as "terrorist activities" .
At the same time, the Ulfa foreign secretary's name is yet to be deleted from the website, which mentions Choudhury's notice control no as "A-343/ 7-1997" .
However, after the release of the Ulfa's central committee members, including chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa in January 2011, Choudhury and his colleagues have been engaged in the peace talks with the Centre.
But the question remains, why the names of Meghen, Chetia and Choudhury have not been deleted from the Interpol's Most Wanted list even after they have spent a long period in custody ? .
Expressing concern over the names of the militant leaders still featuring on the Interpol website, legal experts said in accordance with law, the state police should take initiative in informing the international agency to delete their names.
"Assam Police have to take the initiative to get the names of Ulfa leaders like Sashadhar Choudhry deleted from the Interpol list.
The state police should take up the matter with Interpol at the earliest," said Choudhury's advocate, Bijan Mahajan.
Another advocate, Ashim Talukdar, who appeared for some UNLF cadres in the NIA court here, said withdrawal of the Interpol's red corner notice is possible only through the national agency in cooperation with the state police.
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