Killer of Gulshan Kumar freed from jail in Dhaka

Dhaka: Abdul Rauf Daud Merchant, the convicted killer of Indian music baron Gulshan Kumar, and an alleged aide of Dubai-based Indian underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, has been released from Dhaka Central Jail, media reports said on Monday. Merchant left Dhaka Central Jail in Keraniganj around 4.30 p.m. on Sunday, Jahangir Kabir, senior jail superintendent of the prison, confirmed to The Daily Star. Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal did not clarify whether Merchant has been handed over to India, where he is to stand trial. Merchant had been arrested in Brahmanbaria in 2009 for possessing a fake Bangladeshi passport. Merchant was initially kept at the Kashimpur jail in Gazipur. He was kept at the Dhaka Central Jail since November 2014, when he was re-arrested only four days after being released on bail under section 54 of the penal code, which gives the police the right to arrest anyone under suspicion. Merchant was sentenced to life imprisonment in India in April 2002 for shooting dead the music baron and T-Series founder Gulshan Kumar, in Mumbai on August 12, 1997. Kumar was shot while he was coming out of a temple on August 12, 1997. Merchant illegally entered Bangladesh after being released on parole in April 2009 to visit his sick mother. Since 2013, the Indian government had been pressing Bangladesh to fast-track his extradition, Dhaka Tribune reported. On November 11 last year, Anup Chetia, leader of the Indian separatist group Ulfa, was handed over to the Indian authorities. India then returned Nur Hossain, the prime suspect in the Narayanganj seven-murder case.