Burmese petition India for release of freedom fighters

Friday, 03 September 2010 21:48 Khaing Kyaw Mya

The Burmese community in New Delhi in a fervent appeal letter has urged India's National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and Chief Minister of West Bengal to immediately release 34 Burmese freedom fighters languishing in a Kolkata jail.

Those detained have been incarcerated in jails in India since February 1998. And though their trial drew to a conclusion in July of this year, the execution of justice remains elusive.

More than 1,000 Burmese refugees in New Delhi, Burmese NGOs and the Burmese Community Resource Centre (BCRC) signed the letter, a copy of which is in Mizzima’s possession.

“We will hand over the letter by hand during the three parties meeting (UNHCR, Burmese representatives and NHRC). The meeting will be held very soon, we are waiting for their [NHRC’s] response,” said Dr. Tint Swe, a representative of the Burmese Community in New Delhi and elected Member of Parliament in Burma’s 1990 general election.

Burmese are requesting Indian authorities to allow the 34 Burmese detainees to travel to the Indian capital for further formalities with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and to allow them to live with Burmese refugees in New Delhi.

"We want National Human Rights Commission intervention because we see that the NHRC is really powerful and very effective because of their intervention in the early years [of the case] preventing the 34 from being deported to Burma,” elaborated Dr. Tint Swe.

The call for their release comes after the case was settled in July of this year, with those accused agreeing to enter into plea bargaining with the prosecuting agency, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

After a series of hearings from May to July, judge Uday Chandra Nag of the City Sessions Court in Kolkata on July 12 pronounced a judgment of a fine of 6,000 rupees (US$1 = 46.5 rupees) each.

The 34 Burmese then moved the court for the return of their bail money, 340,000 rupees in total, deposited in early 1999. However, the motion was denied.

“We applied for the bail money which the 34 had deposited as security bond in the nineties, but the court rejected it. We are filing the petition again with the High Court,” said lawyer Anil Sharma, who is handling the case.

Khyrul Anam, the Superintendent of Presidency Jail in Kolkata where the 34 are presently lodged, told Mizzima that the Burmese would be released once the fine money is paid.

“After completion of the procedure of fine payment they will be released. This is the rule. As they have not deposited the fine money, they should stay in jail,” said the Superintendent.

However, when further pressed by Mizzima, he said he also requires an order from the government as to where to send the Burmese before they can be released.

He said that as foreigners who do not want to be deported to their own country (Burma), prison authorities have to receive orders from New Delhi as to where they will go.

The 34 Burmese, members of the National United Party of Arakan (NUPA) and the Karen National Union (KNU), received consideration certificates by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in November 2009.

The India-based Arakan National Council (ANC) says it wants the matter to be brought before the Indian Parliament and other organizations, including the United Nations.

“They have suffered the maximum punishment and I want strong action as soon as possible to release them. I am disappointed with the largest democracy (India) in the world regarding the actions against patriotic freedom fighters,” ANC President Ashin Ariyavansha argued.

A Burma-born former Indian military intelligence officer, Lieutenant Colonel Grewal, betrayed the Burmese in 1998. Having offered the Burmese shelter on Landfall Island in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, he instead shot dead six of their leaders.

The remaining freedom fighters spent the first six years of their imprisonment without trial. It was only in 2004, after Indian human rights lawyer Nandita Haksar petitioned the Supreme Court of India, that an order eventually arrived in September 2006 stipulating a trial be conducted in Kolkata on a day-to-day basis. The subsequent trial began in January 2007 and ended in July of this year.