By IANS
Kathmandu : Leaders of Bhutanese refugees on a protest-march back home agreed to withdraw the stir Wednesday but thousands staging a sit-in were baton charged by the Nepali police, leaving at least 15 protesters injured.
Bhutanese refugees in Nepal, who are ethnic Nepalis, say they want to return to their Himalayan homeland and want the Indian government to allow them to do so – the only route from Nepal to Bhutan passes through India's West Bengal province.
One Bhutanese schoolboy was killed Tuesday when Indian border forces fired on unarmed refugees trying to return home, triggering outrage among the estimated 107,000 refugees who live in Nepal and leading to calls for a stir.
Nepal's state media said refugee leaders called off their protest-march to Bhutan after talks Wednesday with a representative of the Nepal government, the district magistrate of India's Darjeeling district and the inspector general of police of West Bengal.
However, tempers rose when news of the agreement reached some 8,000 refugees who have been on a sit-in since Monday on the Mechi Bridge that connects Nepal and India.
Accusing their leaders of having been duped by India, the protesters refused to return to their camps, triggering a baton-charge from the Nepali police.
"The area is simmering with tension," said T P Mishra, editor of the Bhutan Reporter, a newspaper brought out by refugees.
Earlier in the day, the talks held in India's border town of Panitanki helped persuade refugee leaders to call off their 'Long March' – a united bid by three Bhutanese parties in exile to lead thousands of Bhutanese refugees to their own homeland from Nepal's refugee camps.
When the talks began, the refugees gave a 15-day ultimatum to the Indian authorities, saying it must persuade Bhutan to start repatriation talks by then.
They also asked for India to stop obstructing marchers and the Indian authorities to pay compensation to the kin of the high school student killed in Indian firing.
The Indian side, according to Bhutanese journalist and rights activist Vidyapati Mishra, said it would convey the demands to New Delhi. The Indian officials also said the compensation demand could be resolved through bilateral talks between the governments of India and Nepal.
However, they insisted on the refugees returning to their camps.
The protest spread to the capital Kathmandu Wednesday with Bhutanese students holding a demonstration at the Indian Embassy and trying to burn an effigy of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
"Down with Manmohan," they shouted as armed police blocked their way and snatched the effigy away.
The refugees' demand is being supported by the eight political parties that form the Nepali ruling coalition.
Alarmed at the growing violence and the death, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Wednesday said it was "extremely concerned over a violent confrontation on the Mechi bridge…between marching refuges and Indian police and is saddened over the death of one refugee and several injured."
It said it "fully understand the increasing frustration of the refugees about the lack of progress on repatriation."
"There is no justification for such violence and loss of life. This is a terrible tragedy."
After remaining ghettoed in closed camps in Nepal for 16 years following an ethnic crackdown by the Bhutan government, a large number of refugees reached the end of their patience when the US last month offered to resettle them on American soil.
Refugees favouring going back home feel the offer, though generous, will encourage Bhutan to evict still more citizens.