Berlin: So near and yet so far is the sad story of the CBI in the extradition case of Amrendra Ghosh from Germany as, even after winning the legal battle, it cannot bring the fugitive back as he swallowed an 8- centimetre knife and refuses operation.

Ghosh, wanted in connection with a bank fraud, had swallowed an 8-centimetre knife after the German Supreme Court upheld lower courts order for his extradition.

Caught in a piquant situation, Ghosh swallowed the knife and hurt himself badly, prompting the German authorities to send an urgent message to India asking for putting on hold the extradition process.

The situation is same and nothing has changed at least for the CBI. The fugitive continues to remain elusive from them as the knife continues to remain in Ghosh's stomach and he has refused to give his consent for an operation to remove it.

All the efforts of the hospital authorities to persuade him for an operation have failed so far, says a senior official at the Indian Mission in Berlin.

"We are in regular touch with the German authorities but they are very categorical that his extradition was possible only after the knife was removed from the body," he said.

According to the German law, no patient could be operated without his or her consent or the consent of immediate kin of the patient.

PTI