India ready to extradite Nur Hossain

India has agreed to send back Nur Hossain, the prime suspect in a multiple-murder case in Bangladesh, Foreign Minister A.H. Mahmood Ali told parliament Wednesday.

Replying to a query from Jatiya Party member Pir Fazlur Rahman, the minister said: "The matter was discussed during the recent visit of Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj. The Indian government has agreed to extradite him."

Hossain and his two accomplices were arrested June 15 from an apartment at Baguiati, close to Kolkata's Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport, bdnews24.com reported.

A councillor in Bangladesh's Narayanganj and prime accused in the murder of seven people, Hosain has been booked under the Arms Act and Foreigners Registration Act for illegal trespass into Indian territory without valid travel documents and for illegal possession of a weapon.

All three are currently in police custody.

Hossain's arrest was made nearly one and a half months in India after the seven murders in Narayanganj that shook the country.

Nazrul Islam, a city councillor, senior lawyer Chandan Kumar Sarkar and five others were abducted April 27. Their decomposed bodies were recovered from the Shitalakhyya river several days later.

Hossain went off the radar after the families of the victims alleged he orchestrated the abductions and murders.

Bangladesh sought the help of the Interpol May 22 to nab him, but it had also informed India to check out reports that Hossain had slipped into Kolkata.

After his arrest, the Bangladesh government began the process to bring him back from Kolkata under the extradition treaty.

Hossain is believed to be the mastermind of the Narayanganj multiple murders, for which some officers of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) are now in the dock.

Assassinated councillor Nazrul Islam's relatives alleged that the RAB officers took 60 million taka (about $770,000) from Hossain to carry out the abductions and murders and then helped him escape to Kolkata.

But the RAB has denied the charge even though it had claimed that he fled to India.

However, three officers of Narayanganj-based RAB-11 were removed from the force two days after the April 27 abductions.

Later, their parent forces packed them off on forced retirement after allegations of their involvement in the crime surfaced.

After the trio were arrested following a court order, all of them confessed to their roles in the abduction and murder of the seven men.