The process to extradite to India Daud Merchant, convicted for Bollywood music baron Gulshan Kumar’s murder, has started, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal says.
His statement comes amid media reports suggesting that Dhaka moved on the matter in exchange for BNP leader Salahuddin Ahmed’s extradition.
Ahmed went ‘missing’ on Mar 10 last year. His family had alleged then he was picked up by plainclothesmen from Dhaka’s Uttara.
The BNP joint secretary general was arrested in India’s Shillong on May 11.
The 54-year-old claimed a group of unidentified people had ‘abducted’ him and he could not remember what happened next.
Speaking to reporters at his office on Monday, the home minister evaded a direct answer on the media reports.
“It’s not a matter of bringing anyone back in exchange for extraditing anyone. There are some foreign nationals in Bangladesh jails, who have served their sentences. We are contacting with the relevant embassies to send them back,” said Kamal.
Daud Merchant, an alleged aide of Dubai-based Indian mafia lord Daud Ibrahim, has been in Bangladesh prison for five years.
He was arrested on May 28, 2009 at Brahmanbarhia and is facing trial for trespassing into the country.
Merchant was rearrested outside Gazipur’s Kashimpur Jail as soon as he was released on bail on Dec 2, 2014.
The next day police produced him before a Dhaka court and secured a three-day remand to question him in a case filed under Section 54 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which accounts for suspicious behaviour.
It had then said the remand was necessary to find out if he had any ties to terrorists.
But on Dec 9 last year, the Detective Branch of police filed a plea with a Dhaka court to exonerate Merchant of the charges, according to media reports.
Reports by Indian and Bangladeshi media said steps to extradite a few Indian nationals, like Merhcant, were initiated after extraditions of ULFA leader Anup Chetia and Narayanganj seven-murder prime suspect Nur Hossain.
Dhaka rolled up its sleeves to extradite Merchant after meeting between the home secretaries in November last year, media reports suggested.
It said Delhi asked for extraditions of three members of armed group Asif Raja Commando Force— Mawlana Mansur Ali Habibullah, Mufti Obaidullah alias Abu Zafar, Mawlana Emdadullah and top Kolkata criminals Zahid Sheikh and Arif Hussain.
According to those reports, Dhaka wanted top criminal Subrata Bain, prime suspect in Gazipur MP Ahsanullah Master’s murder ‘Dipu’, Islami Chhatra Shibir Chittagong chapter leader Sajjad Hossain and extremist leader Mukta Hossain, among others to be extradited.
Daud Merchant, allegedly a contract sharpshooter, has been convicted and sentenced to life term for the murder of Gulshan Kumar.
Kumar headed the well-known music company T-Series, which was based in Mumbai.
He was allegedly shot dead by Merchant and two others as soon as he came out of a temple on Aug 12, 1997.
Merchant, however, filed an appeal against his conviction.
Mumbai police said he absconded after being released on parole in April, 2009 to visit his family in Mumbra, a small town about 40 km from Mumbai.
In May the same year, he was arrested in Brahmanbarhia.
Source: Bd news24
