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Diplomatic, Bureaucratic Tangles

299 foreign prisoners languish in jails

Kaiiash Sarkar
At least 299 prisoners of foreign nationality are stuck in different jails of the country due to diplomatic and bureaucratic tangles, even though their jail terms expired.
Inspector General of Prisons (IG-Prisons) Brig Gen Zakir Hassan told The Daily Star, "We have been trying to repatriate them. The home ministry and the foreign ministry have also been contacting embassies and high commissions concerned."
Among the prisoners of foreign nationality 162 Indian citizens, 128 Myanmaresc, two Tanzanian, two Nepali, one Pakistani, one Filipino, one Saudi Arabian, one Kenyan and a Hungarian are in jail even though their jail terms have expired. Of them, eight Indian and two Myanmarese prisoners arc women.
Sources said authorities con cerned could not collect information about the prisoners who have no passports. Most Indian and Myanmarese detainees have no passports.
Indian guerrilla leader Anup Chetia is one of them and he has been detained for over 10 years. Deputy Inspector General (DIG Prisons) Maj Shamsul Haider Siddique said, "Once Anup Chetia was in Dhaka Central lail but now he is in Myrnensingh jail."
IG-Prisons Zakir Hassan said, "We as well as the home and foreign ministries always send letters to the authorities of the foreign detainees a few days before their jail terms end so that they can take steps to repatriate (heir citizens in time. " "In most cases, we do not get response from them. After receiving our letters, the authorities concerned sometime inform us that they failed to trace the detainees'origin," he said.
The IG-Prisons said a few NGOs have been working with foreign prisoners and their repatriation issues but they could not make any headway in this regard. He said the state has to count the extra cost of keeping them in jail.
Former adviser to a caretaker government Sultana Kamal, executive director of Ain O Shalish Kendra, told The Daily Star yesterday, "We have been working with the jail authorities and also contacting the embassies concerned."
"The process is lengthy," the former adviser said, adding, "There are some specific cases that depend on diplomatic and burcau-craticdecisions."
A total of 961 prisoners of 14 countries are in different Bangladeshi jails. Of them, 521 people, 509 males and 12 females, are under trial while 141 people, 132 males and nine females, arc serving time.
Jail sources said 541 inmates of foreign nationality arc Myanmaresc, 380 Indian, 17 Pakistani, six Nepali, five Tanzanian, two Nigerian, two Filipino, one Malaysian, one Saudi Arabian, one Ghanaian, one Kenyan, one Hungarian and one is from Ivory Coast.