Anup Chetia alias Golap Barua, general secretary of the outlawed Indian separatist group, United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), will end his jail term in Bangladesh on 25 February. He is being detained at Dhaka's central jail ever since his arrest by Bangladeshi authorities from the capital on 21 December 1997 on four main charges – illegal entry, possession of two forged Bangladeshi passports, possession of a satellite telephone and having foreign currency of several countries.

The question uppermost in New Delhi's mind now is whether Dhaka would hand over Chetia, 54, to the Indian authorities after his jail term ends. India does not have an extradition treaty in place with Bangladesh, but hopes Dhaka would hand Chetia over to India as he is wanted at home for several crimes. In fact, New Delhi is already mounting pressure on Premier Khaleda Zia's Government to secure Chetia's custody after 25 February.

This is a Catch 22 situation for Begum Zia. Human rights activists and lawyers in Bangladesh are backing the detained ULFA leader and have stepped up pressure on the BNP Government to favourably consider Chetia's pending request for political asylum in the country. Besides, according to recent media reports, these Bangladeshi activists have been lobbying with the Government in Dhaka not to hand over the ULFA leader to the Indian authorities.

Premier Zia is in a dilemma because if she hands Chetia over to the Indian authorities to repair its eroding ties with New Delhi, she would be projected by radical elements at home of succumbing to India's pressure. That goes against the BNP's strident anti-India posture. Again, if the BNP Government lets Chetia loose after completion of his jail term, as Dhaka had done to at least one other Indian militant leader in the past, it runs the risk of being projected by the international community as a regime that is not clamping down on terror. Already, the BNP Government is being accused by Western media of letting the country turn into a hub for jehadi groups with links to the al Qaeda, a charge Dhaka has been denying.

A leading English daily from Guwahati, The Sentinel, quoted Ms Sigma Huda, a top Bangladeshi lawyer and Secretary General of the Bangladesh Society for the Enforcement of Human Rights (BSEHR), as saying: "The Government here will first have to dispose off Chetia's plea for political asylum that has been pending with it before the question of his fate upon completion of his jail term will arise." The paper quoted her as saying that Dhaka can reject Chetia's asylum request.

Asked by the paper about the options before the Bangladesh Government to deal with the ULFA leader, Huda said, "Sending Chetia back to his home country will be a difficult proposition in view of the harsh prosecution laws there. So, there is this option of negotiating his hand over to a third country." It is another matter that no third country will come forward that easily to receive an Indian insurgent leader. The BSEHR is among the rights groups in Bangladesh backing the detained ULFA leader.

The Chetia case may not have interested the Indian media, but Dhaka's move in the next few weeks will go a long way in influencing the state of Indo-Bangladesh relations. If Dhaka decides not to hand over Chetia to the Indian authorities, it will expose New Delhi's lack of clout in its immediate neighbourhood. Even after 16 Border Security Force (BSF) men were 'snatched' by a Bangladeshi mob in the Assam sector in April 2001 and killed in a most brutal manner in the presence of the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), New Delhi's response was quite meek.

From Dhaka's viewpoint, too, this has interesting dimensions. Since Chetia's capture in 1997, the Bangladesh Government has been denying the presence of Northeast Indian insurgents in its territory, and has been citing the arrest of the ULFA leader to say that its policy is not to provide sanctuary or support to Indian militants. Now, if Dhaka were to let Chetia free once he completes his jail term, Bangladesh will stand exposed.

Another  strong possibility is that Dhaka could frame some new charges and extend Chetia's detention. In fact, Indian security analysts see such a possibility and say that if that happens, it would amount to actually granting Chetia political asylum, though indirectly. In any event, the Chetia case will have significant bearing on New Delhi-Dhaka ties in future.