BANGLADESH: HIGH COURT COMMUTES ULFA LEADER'S DEATH SENTENCE

December 18, 2024:

A Bangladeshi High Court on December 18, 2024 commuted the death sentence of ULFA leader Paresh Barua to life imprisonment and acquitted a former junior minister and five others in a 2004 case of attempted smuggling of weapons to the separatist outfit in northeast India.
The seized weapons included over 27,000 grenades, 150 rocket launchers, over 11 lakh ammunition, 1,100 sub machine guns and 11.41 million bullets.
The two-member High Court bench commuted the punishment of ULFA leader Paresh Barua, who was sentenced to death after a trial in absentia --- now assumed to be living in China --- and sentenced him to life imprisonment, said a government attorney at the bench.
The High Court bench comprising Justice Mostafa Zaman Islam and Justice Nasrin Akhtar acquitted former state minister for home Lutfuzzaman Babar and six others, who were handed down capital punishment following the death reference hearing, he added.
The United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) is an armed militant organisation operating in the Northeast Indian state of Assam. It seeks to establish an independent sovereign nation state of Assam.
On January 30, 2014, a special tribunal in the northeastern port city of Chattogram handed down the death penalty to 14 people, including two former ministers of the past BNP government, two ex-army generals and a top ULFA leader in the arms haul case.
The trial or lower court verdict had come nearly a decade after the accidental seizure of 10 truck loads of smuggled-in weapons destined to the ULFA hideouts in northeastern India through Bangladesh territory.