Dhaka won’t hand over top ULFA leader to India

September 12th, 2009 GUWAHATI - Bangladesh's pledge to sign a treaty enabling transfer of sentenced militants and criminals and crack down on Indian separatists in its territory has evoked a positive response in Assam. If such a treaty is signed, then it is surely a positive development.

August 23rd, 2009 DHAKA - Ahead of Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dipu Moni's visit to India Sep 7, Dhaka wants more information on Delhi's plan to build Tipaimukh dam in Manipur state, a senior official has said. Foreign Secretary Mirajul Quayes described last month's visit to India by a parliamentary team as "useful" and said the data supplied by India was being examined by a committee of experts, New Age newspaper reported Sunday.

August 18th, 2009 DHAKA - Five Indian separatists have been arrested from the wooded hills of Khagrachhari in Bangladesh's Chittagong Hill Tracts, an apparent indication of the growing cooperation between the two neighbours in curbing militancy. Bangladesh Army and police personnel in a joint drive Monday arrested the five Indian nationals who they believe are members of the separatist National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) of India's Assam state.

July 21st, 2009 GUWAHATI - The United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) separatist group was luring students with money to carry out explosions ahead of Independence Day, say police and army officers in Assam. The ULFA is trapping students from economically weak families and some of them studying in towns and cities away from their homes to indulge in terror strikes...

July 12th, 2009 DHAKA - India is expected to demand the deportation of top leaders of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), a militant outfit that it says operates from Bangladeshi soil, as top brass of the border guards of the two neighbours began talks here Sunday. Talks will take place over three days between the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) delegation led by its director general, Major General Mainul Islam and his Indian counterpart, Border Security Force Director General M.L.

July 7th, 2009 GUWAHATI - The outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) is planning to stage violent strikes in the run up to Independence Day, with a four-member hit squad sneaking into the state from bases in Myanmar, rebel leaders said Tuesday. We have information of at least four ULFA militants, including a senior leader, already entering Assam from Myanmar and planning to carry out attacks ahead of Aug 15, Prabal Neog, leader of the pro-talk ULFA faction, told IANS.

June 24th, 2009 DHAKA - Retired career diplomat Ahmad Tariq Karim has been appointed the new high commissioner of Bangladesh to India. Brought back from voluntary retirement and a sabbatical in a US university, Karim was the deputy high commissioner in New Delhi in the 1980s.

June 18th, 2009 WASHINGTON/DHAKA - Several newspaper reports across South Asia have claimed that Bangladesh is emerging as the haven of choice for South Asian terror operatives, and that there stay is being facilitated by both Bangladeshi and Pakistani intelligence services. According to the Christian Science Monitor (CSM), in recent days, Bangladeshi police have uncovered a plot that used Bangladesh to transit thousands of weapons to an Indian separatist group, and followed up by arresting key members of that group in Dhaka.

June 9th, 2009 DHAKA - Arms and explosives seized in 2003 and again in 2004 belonged to an Indian insurgent group using Bangladeshi territory, former top officials of Bangladesh's National Services Intelligence (NSI) have told a court in Chittagong. The haul in 2003 at Kahalu in Bogra district in northern Bangladesh had ammunition belonging to the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), an insurgent group in the northeastern Indian state of Assam, and being carried from one place to another in India through Bangladesh, said Major General (retd) Rezzaqul Haider Chowdhury.

May 18th, 2009 DHAKA - Two former Bangladesh Army generals, who headed the National Security Intelligence (NSI), will be prosecuted for facilitating the landing of Chinese arms meant for insurgents in India's northeast and for trying to smuggle these arms into India. Major General Rezakul Haider Chowdhury and Brigadier General Abdur Rahim, both retired, were picked up from their Dhaka homes Saturday night.

February 21st, 2009 GUWAHATI - A splinter group of the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) Friday said it has written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, formally giving up its demand for independence for Assam and instead seeking maximum autonomy for the state. 'We have put forward an 18-point charter of demands, a copy of which was sent to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for active consideration,' Mrinal Hazarika, president of the pro-talks ULFA faction, told journalists.

February 17th, 2009 GUWAHATI - The outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) could resort to violence ahead of the upcoming general elections in Assam although the outfit would not be able to influence the polls like it did in the past, says leaders of the pro-talk faction of the rebel group. 'The ULFA has the capacity to resort to acts of sabotage and violence during the polls and would probably demonstrate their strength during the elections,' Mrinal Hazarika, president of the pro-talk ULFA faction, told IANS.

February 9th, 2009 GUWAHATI - The leader of a pro-talk faction of the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) Tuesday accused politicians of hobnobbing with the outfit and alleged that political parties in Assam have been using the insurgency issue to its advantage in all elections since 1991. 'Since the 1991 elections, political parties have used the ULFA issue either negatively or positively for political gains.

January 3rd, 2009 DHAKA - India's External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee is scheduled to be here mid-January, among the first foreign dignitaries to visit Bangladesh after the new government led by Sheikh Hasina is sworn in next Tuesday. The outgoing caretaker government's Foreign Affairs Advisor Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury confirmed this, but said details of the visit would be worked out by the new government.

January 2nd, 2009 DHAKA - Indian fugitive Anup Chetia, who completed his jail term in Bangladesh in 2004, is awaiting the Dhaka High Court's verdict on his plea for political asylum, a media report said Saturday. Chetia, who belongs to the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), a militant group accused of widespread violence in northeast India's Assam state, was nabbed for entering Bangladesh on forged papers, convicted and jailed about 10 years ago.