Saturday, June 13, 2009

SSB guilty of excesses, encroachment: MPs’ report

SSB guilty of excesses, encroachment: MPs’ report
Kantipur Report
KATHMANDU, June 13 - The reports prepared by a team of Legislature-Parliament's International Relations and Human Rights Committee and another of 18 parties formed to look into the news of alleged encroachment and excesses carried out by the Indian border security force, Seema Surakshya Bal (SSB), has found them to be true.

The reports have been made public at a time when Indian Ambassador to Nepal Rakesh Sood and Foreign Minister of Nepal Sujata Koirala have been denying any sort of excesses against Nepalese citizens by the SSB to have taken place.

Lawmaker Padma Lal Bishwakarma, leader of the parliamentary panel which investigated the western part of the controversial area, confirmed there were several reports of excesses in the border area with large number of missing women in almost every village and several reports of murder.

The women in the area were often subjected to kidnapping, rape and brutal murder by the Indian citizens and SSB thanks to the absence of government in the region, he said.

Both the monitoring teams have concluded that all the 22 border entry points face almost same problems — dilapidated border pillars or absence of pillars, suspicious new pillars at several places and border encroachment, non-demarcation of 10 yardlines and nebulous distance between borderline and border pillars.

The team said it was difficult to measure the exact area (in figures) that has been encroached due to absence of surveys.

According to Bishwakarma, the Indian forces have been conducting regular march-past, putting up “symbols” on houses and trees symbolising border inside Nepali territory and digging trenches in the 10 yard area—a blatant disregard to the International conventions and agreements.

He said it was high time the government start refreshing and reviewing the borderlines to resolve further crisis.

Likewise, coordinator of the joint team of 18 parties Amik Sherchan said the Indian activities inside Nepali territory have terrified the local residents.

He also informed about the Indian contention in the villages of Rajpur, Raniyapur and Chiloria.

Meanwhile, the officials of the Survey department involved in the monitoring process have also stressed on defining the border.

Referring to the fact that only two plots of Koilapur have been surveyed among all the border entry points, former Director of the survey department, Punya Prasad Oli said it was difficult to exactly distinguish the encroached area without surveys.

He also said that it was imperative to have surveys as soon as possible to prevent further encroachment.

Sashi Narsingh Rayamajhi, an officer of the Department of Survey said it was against border rules to dig trenches on border lines.

There are 79 pillars in Nepal-India border area between Arra ports of the Dang-Kapilbastu districts to Bhuwa port of Banke district, many of which are in extremely poor condition including a missing pillar (no. 48 or 602/1) at Khabari Khola, informed Rayamajhi.

Similarly, lawmaker Rayamajhi said the reports have cited the dependency of Nepali citizens on Indian market for daily commodities as the major cause for excesses and encroachment and have, thus, proposed for a developmental package addressing the supply of daily commodities to the residents of border area.

The teams informed the reports will be handed to the government within a week after making a note of complaints made by the residents during the inspection.


Posted on: 2009-06-13 06:08:12 (Server Time)

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