Bangladesh on Wednesday sought New Delhi''s assistance to track down six fugitive condemned Bangabandhu killers believed to be hiding in different countries to evade execution as five other fellow convicts were hanged in January this year after a protracted trial process, reports BSS.
"We have sought Indian assistance in tracking down and arrest the remaining killers for their exposure to gallows," Home Minister Sahara Khatun told reporters as newly appointed Indian High Commissioner in Dhaka Rajeet Mitter called on her at her Bangladesh Secretariat office. Asked if they discussed about the return of at least two of the absconding putsch plotters who were reportedly hiding or serving jail terms in India, Khatun said "we have also discussed the matter".
"We asked India to return them if they really are staying there," Khatun said.
Bangladesh and India currently do not have any extradition treaties but the two countries in recent years exchanged a number of Indian separatist elements and Bangladesh gangsters who had taken refuge in each other''s territory to evade justice at home.
The Home Minister''s comments came as the government intensified a diplomatic campaign also engaging the Interpol to bring back home six fugitive killers and called upon the foreign countries to extend their hands of cooperation in tracking them down and extradite to Bangladesh.
Khatun said she also discussed with the envoy about the mutual cooperation in combating cross-border terrorism and crimes in line with the deals reached during Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina''s maiden India tour in January alongside the issue of killing of Bangladeshis along the frontiers in BSF shootouts.
"The High Commissioner reassured us of taking steps to stop the phenomenon saying none should die unnecessarily in the frontier shootouts," she said.
Five condemned convicts of the Bangabandhu Murder Trial were hanged in January this year after 13 years'' trial process as their petitions for review of the earlier apex court judgment were rejected.
They were sacked lieutenant colonels Syed Faruk Rahman, Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan, AKM Mohiuddin Ahmed (lancer), Mohiuddin Ahmed (artillery) and sacked major Bazlul Huda.
The six absconding convicts are ex-lieutenant colonels Khandaker Abdur Rashid, Shariful Haque Dalim, AM Rashed Chowdhury, SHBM Noor Chowdhury, ex-captain Abdul Majed and army risaldar Moslehuddin.
According to earlier media reports, the last two were hiding in India and serving jail terms there.
Interpol issued a second "red warrant" renewing an earlier one to track down the absconding assassins and coup plotters in May last year after the process for tracking them down was virtually stalled for years during the ex-prime minister Khaleda Zia''s past Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP)-Jamaat led government.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina recently promised to bring back the rest six convicted killers of Bangladesh, also her father, saying, "we will run in the rest of the convicted killers. Where will they hide?"
"The world is big and also too small -they can hide nowhere," Hasina said in her first public address after the execution of five of the 12 convicted putsch leaders.
The foreign office earlier confirmed that one of the convicts, ex- lieutenant colonel Aziz Pasha, however, died in Zimbabwe eight years ago as he was on the run.
Officials have confirmed at least one of them, Noor
Chowdhury, the man who directly had shot Bangabandhu dead along with already executed Bazlul Huda, had taken refuge in Canada while the Canadian authority launched a process for his extradition.
The 59-year-old Chowdhury has been challenging a Canadian deportation order on the grounds that he would be put to death if returned to Bangladesh while Canada did not have death penalty in its justice system.
Thailand had returned Huda in 1998 after Dhaka and Bangkok signed an extradition treaty while the United States returned Mohiuddin Ahmed (lancer) during the past military-backed caretaker government in 2007 after he failed to obtain a federal court order there to stay back.
"Bangladesh will do everything necessary to bring the killers to justice," Foreign Minister Dr Dipu Moni earlier told BSS but declined to comment on their whereabouts or if all of them were tracked down abroad because of the "sensitivity of the issue".
But she hinted that necessary intelligence was gathered in some cases.
But reports quoting police said another convict Rashed Chowdhury was now staying in the United States while Dhaka requested the US government through its embassy in Washington to deport him.
According to unconfirmed media reports the others were hiding in Libya, Pakistan, Kenya, Hong Kong and India but several of them were traveling to different countries time to time to escape arrests.
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