ULFA leader Paresh Barua arrested in Bangladesh?

DHAKA: Top ULFA leader Paresh Barua, on the run for three decades, has been arrested here, a Bangladeshi newspaper reported today, but the police dismissed it as a "hoax".

The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) officials arrested a suspected Indian national at a house in central Dhaka's posh residential locality Dhanmondi late last night, said widely-circulated Bengali dailies 'Ittefaq' and 'Samakal'.

The police is ascertaining whether the arrested man, from whom a passport was recovered with the name Shamsul Alam on it, has any link with the separatist Indian group ULFA, the newspapers said.

Quoting an unnamed intelligence official, Samakal said the arrested man was Paresh Barua, the prime accused in the seizure of huge arms and ammunitions along the Chittagong coast in 2004. Police, however, did not confirm, it added.

However, a senior CID official dismissed the reports of Barua's arrest.

"Following the reports in the two newspapers about the arrest of Paresh Barua, we checked the matter and found it to be hoax... No such person was arrested by our men as reported," the official told PTI.