By IANS
Kathmandu : Indian security forces manning border with Nepal have prevented a team of Indian law-makers from entering into the Himalayan kingdom and meeting Bhutanese refugees living in camps about to be closed.
The team of Indian parliamentarians and social activists led by Debabrata Biswas, legislator from the Forward Bloc party that supports India’s ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) from outside, were first stopped at eastern India’s Bagdogra airport Saturday.
Sources from the Forward Bloc in West Bengal confirmed the reports that the delegation was stopped from meeting the refugees.
The team was scheduled to visit the Beldangi refugee camp in eastern Nepal’s Jhapa district and show solidarity with the Bhutanese refugees who are demanding to be allowed to return to Bhutan, from where they were evicted in the 1980s.
Upon their arrival at the airport, Indian security forces first tried to dissuade the team from entering Nepal across the border, saying they would not be able to ensure the team’s safety in Nepal.
When the visitors ignored the warning and tried to proceed, they were stopped at Panitanki town on the Indian side of the border and prevented from c5rossing over into NepaL.
The incident was condemned Sunday by the Maoists, who have opposed the initiative of the US government to resettle nearly 100,000 Bhutanese refugees in third countries from this month. The US wants the Nepal government and international community to pressure Bhutan into taking the evicted citizens back.
“The incident shows the Indian government is against the repatriation of the Bhutanese refugees,” Maoist Minister for Information and Communications Krishna Bahadur Mahara, who is also the spokesman of the Nepal government, was quoted by a Maoist daily as saying.
“The step is against the majority desire to resolve the refugee problem in a simple and uncomplicated manner,” the Janadisha daily quoted the minister as saying.
Last year, the refugees who want to return home, tried to stage a long march back to Bhutan.
However, they were stopped by the Indian security forces at the bridge connecting India and Nepal. Nepal and Bhutan do not share any border, and refuges needed to cross a tiny Indian strip of land to enter Bhutan from their camp site in Nepal.
At least two refugees were killed as the Indian forces opened fire on unarmed marchers, mostly women and youngsters, triggering an international outcry.
The Bhutan government forced citizens of Nepali origin to leave the kingdom in the 1980s and has not allowed them to return despite growing international pressure.
The refugees say Bhutan draws its strength from India, its biggest trade partner and foreign affairs advisor that is refusing to be drawn into the dispute, calling it a bilateral issue between Nepal and Bhutan.
After their pleas to successive Indian prime ministers were ignored, the pro-repatriation refugees have been trying to win the support of Indian parliamentarians to intercede on their behalf.