After languishing in Bangladeshi jails for 12 years, two Indian militants were handed over to the Border Security Force (BSF) by the Border Guards Bangladesh (BGB), officials said here Tuesday.
"The BGB handed over two NLFT (National Liberation Front of Tripura) extremists Monday afternoon to the BSF through Belonia check post," a Tripura police spokesman told reporters. The check post is 120 km south of Tripura capital Agartala.
The BSF officials later handed over the NLFT cadres Bidya Debbarma and Budhulia Jamatia, both aged between 38 to 40 years old, to police.
The tribal guerillas told police interrogators that they had joined the NLFT outfit in 1997 and took arms training in their Bangladeshi camps.
"Frustrated over the terrorism and realising that the violent activities have been harming the societies and their future, they fled from their Bangladeshi camp in 2001. When the duo tried to cross the border, the BGB jawans caught them and the courts of that country put them in jail," the police official said, quoting the militants' statements.
The two NLFT rebels told police that many militants fled from the Bangladeshi camps and many may still be in Bangladesh jails.
"At least 21 militants are languishing in Bangladesh's Comilla and Sylhet jails for many years," the NLFT extremists told police.
Tripura's two militant secessionist outfits - NLFT and the All Tripura Tiger Force, both banned by the Indian authorities - have set up bases in Bangladesh along with the other outfits of the northeast, and receive support from other separatist outfits of the northeastern region.
They have been demanding secession of Tripura from India.
Tripura shares a 856-km border with Bangladesh, some of it is unfenced and running through dense forests, making it porous and vulnerable.
