The NIA Special court on Wednesday sentenced jailed United National liberation Front (UNlF) Chairman RK Meghan for ten years imprisonment while the court sentenced 17 other accused got seven and eight years of imprisonment.
Meghan also known as Sanayaima was arrested at Dhaka in Bangladesh in 2010 and subsequently brought back to India. The NIA had chargesheeted Meghan and 17 others for their involvement in ‘criminal conspiracy to wage war against the nation by indulging in fundraising and heinous terrorist acts, and threatening the unity, integrity, security and sovereignty of India by terror strikes’.
“All the accused were convicted under Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and the Indian Penal Code, for various offences including criminal conspiracy of terrorists acts and waging war against the Government of India,” said Meghan’s advocate Asim Talukder.
It may be mentioned here that while the NIA chargesheeted Meghan and others for waging war against India, the UNlF chairman has been offering to the Government of India that the outfit would lay down arms before United Nations authorities if the Government of India allowed a plebiscite in Manipur in the presence of UN representatives and arrange for the deployment of UN peacekeeping forces in the troubled state.
He has also demanded that the India Army and other paramilitary forces deployed in Manipur should be withdrawn before the plebiscite and that the UN peacekeeping forces should be deployed. He had said that the UNlF will deposit arms to the UN authorities on a date prior to the plebiscite and will abide by whatever decision the people give.
A postgraduate in International Relations from Jadavpur University, Meghan is the great-grandson of Manipuri patriot Prince Tikendrajit Singh, who led the army of the Manipur kingdom in the Anglo-Manipur War of 1891.