'27000 grenades, 840 rocket launchers...': What is the 2004 Chittagong arms smuggling case in which ULFA chief Paresh Baruah was sentenced to death? - Explained

On Wednesday, a two-member bench of the Chittagong High Court acquitted former Bangladesh Home Minister, Lutfozzaman Babar, and five other accused, and also reduced the death sentence in absentia of fugitive ULFA chief Paresh Baruah, in the 2004 Chittagong arms smuggling case.

2004 Chittagong arms smuggling case: Former Bangladesh Home Minister Lutfozzaman Babar and five others were on Wednesday acquitted in the infamous 2004 Chittagong arms smuggling case. Babar and the other accused had been sentenced to death after being convicted in a rebel gun-running operation which came to light in 2004 when 10 trucks laden with smuggled weapons were seized.

On Wednesday, a two-member bench headed by Justice Mustafa Zaman Islam of the Chittagong High Court acquitted the former minister and five other accused, and also reduced the death sentence in absentia of fugitive ULFA chief Paresh Baruah.

Apart from Lutfozzaman Babar, those acquitted in the case included former top intelligence officers, as well as the late Motiur Rahman Nizami, an ex-industry minister, who was executed in prison after being sentenced to death in May 2016 for crimes against humanity in the 1971 Bangladesh war of liberation from Pakistan.

What is the 2004 Chittagong arms smuggling case

On April 1, 2004, as many as ten trucks laden with with weapons, including rockets and grenades, were seized by the Bangladeshi Police. It has been alleged that elements of the then Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) government, with the help of ISI- Pakistan's spy agency-- had tried to smuggle the weapons using the jetty of Chittagong Urea Fertilizer Limited (CUFL).

Police said the massive cache of munitions were being shipped to separatists groups in India, especially, the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA). The seizure, later dubbed as the '10-Truck Arms and Ammunition Haul in Chittagong', is the biggest arms smuggling case in Bangladesh's history.

According to a report by the Daily Star, a total of 4,930 types of sophisticated weapons, 27,020 grenades, 840 rocket launchers, 300 rockets, 2,000 grenade launching tubes, 6,392 magazines and 1,140,520 bullets were seized by the Bangladesh Police when these munitions were being loaded onto 10 truck from twin-engine boats at the CUFL jetty at the Chittagong port.

Paresh Baruah, the commander of ULFA-- a terrorist organization which advocates the separation of Assam from the Indian state-- is one of the 50 persons accused in the case. Baruah was reportedly living in Dhaka at the time.

Two cases were filed at the Karnaphuli police station in Chittagong under the Arms Act and Special Powers Act, and on January 30, 2014, nearly a decade after the arms seizure, a Sessions Court and Special Tribunal in Chittagong delivered their verdicts in the cases. The Chittagong sessions court awarded death sentence to 14 convicts, including former industry minister and Jamaat-e-Islami chief Motiur Rahman Nizami (he was later hanged in another case), Lutfozzaman Babar, Paresh Baruah and the heads of two intelligence agencies.