Rajkumar Meghen, the chairman of the Manipur-based extremist group United National Liberation Front (UNLF), was freed from the Guwahati Central Jail on November 9, a day ahead of his scheduled release.
Belonging to Manipur’s royal family, he formed the UNLF in 1954. Also known as Sanayaima, he was caught in Bangladesh in September 2010 but was shown arrested from Bihar’s Motihari in December that year.
A special trial court of the National Investigation Agency in June 2016 convicted him to 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment under relevant Sections of the IPC and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act for various offences, including terrorist acts and waging war against the nation.
The court had also convicted 17 other UNLF leaders to seven to 10 years in jail in the same case.
“The UNLF chairman got remission (reduction of prison term) of some months for his contribution in setting up a library, a music school for the inmates and construction of a rock garden inside the Guwahati Central Jail premises,” a jail official said on condition of anonymity.
The UNLF chief, expected to reach Manipur capital Imphal on Monday, declined to comment. Defiant during his trial, he had said: “I am not fighting to secede from India, but to regain Manipur’s freedom that the British and then India snatched away.”
