A foreign ministry spokesperson in Dhaka on Thursday said that Bangladesh Nationalist Party standing committee member Salahuddin Ahmed could return home anytime as the home ministry’s approval to the effect was sent to the Bangladesh mission in India.
‘The foreign ministry has sent the home ministry’s approval on issuance of a travel document to BNP leader Salahuddin. Obviously, he could return home anytime on completion of the remaining procedure,’ director general (additional charge) of the public diplomacy wing Mohammad Rafiqul Alam said, responding to a reporter’s question at the weekly press briefing in the ministry in Dhaka.
Asked when he could return, he said it would depend on Salahuddin, also a former state minister, as what was left in the process was just procedural.
In a letter, the Bangladesh foreign ministry recently sought an opinion from the home ministry over the repatriation of the 60-year-old BNP leader, who won nearly eight years of legal battles over the allegation of trespassing on India.
Asked about the repatriation process for the BNP leader, home minister Asaduzzamn Khan told New Age on Wednesday that the government had a provision for granting a travel pass to any Bangladeshi who loses his passport.
On February 28, 2023, the Shillong Judge Court in India’s Meghalaya state upheld the lower court’s acquittal of the BNP leader, ending nearly eight years of legal battle over trespass allegations.
Salahuddin, a bureaucrat-turned politician, was allegedly abducted by the Rapid Action Battalion from the capital’s Uttara on March 10, 2015. Two months later, he was found in Shillong, prompting his arrest by Indian authorities on May 11, 2015.
In an interview with German media Deutsche Welle Bangla, the BNP leader alleged that he was handcuffed and blindfolded on gun-point and abducted from the house of a friend in the capital.
He was confined to a secret place for 61 days before he discovered himself in India.
In the operative part of its order, the Shillong Court directed the police superintendent (infiltration) to communicate with the authorities concerned to deport the ‘acquitted person’ to Bangladesh.
Following his acquittal, the Meghalaya government on March 24 wrote to India’s external affairs ministry, requesting that it expedite the process of deporting the ‘high profile’ Bangladeshi national.
On May 8, Salahuddin applied to the Bangladesh assistant high commissioner in Guwahati for travel documents, attaching all case documents.
The Indian High Commission in Dhaka did not respond to New Age request for comments on the matter.
On October 26, 2018, a lower court in India acquitted Salahuddin of the charge. The Indian government unsuccessfully appealed against the verdict.
