A Manipur-based rights group said the National Investigation Agency (NIA) flew Rajkumar Meghen, chairman of the United National Liberation Front (UNLF), to Delhi on Monday, less than two days after his release from Guwahati Central Jail after serving a 10-year sentence for “terror and waging war” against the nation.
Meghen was expected to reach his hometown Imphal on Monday. He was set free a day ahead of his scheduled release on Sunday.
“He was released on November 9 but was taken to Delhi by a morning flight today [Monday] after the NIA put him under arbitrary detention. His son Chinglen and lawyer Gunadhor are travelling with him,” a spokesperson of Human Rights Alert said.
Also known as Sanayaima and belonging to Manipur’s royal family, he has been one of the tallest extremist leaders of Manipur since forming the UNLF in 1954.
He was caught in Bangladesh in September 2010 but was shown arrested from Bihar’s Motihari in December that year.
In June 2016, a special trial court of the NIA convicted the UNLF chief of 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment under relevant Sections of the IPC and Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act for various offences, including terrorist acts and waging war against the nation.
The court also convicted 17 other UNLF leaders to seven to 10 years in jail in the same case.
“The UNLF chairman got remission 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 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.”
