By Sudeshna Sarkar, IANS,
Kathmandu : India’s Home Decretary G.K. Pillai Saturday wound up bilateral security talks with Nepal here with no progress in the new extradition treaty proposed by New Delhi. He also scotched allegations that Nepal’s Maoists and their arms were being “imported” to India to fan anti-government violence in the sub-continent.
“I don’t think that anybody is importing Nepal Maoists,” the home secretary said at the end of two-day of talks that focused on combating cross-border terrorism in South Asia. “I don’t think that’s a crucial issue.”
The official’s repudiation came after Indian Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee, whose Trinamool Congress came on top in parliamentary elections in West Bengal, accused the state’s ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) of “importing Maoists from Nepal and arming them to terrorise the people” of West Bengal.
“The CPI-M and Maoists are twins,” the minister said Wednesday in West Bengal, which borders Nepal. “They are resorting to killing to terrorise people. Both are killers.”
The home secretary also repudiated the suggestion that India’s Maoist party – banned by New Delhi after a spurt in violence in several Indian states – were obtaining arms from Nepal.
The controversy erupted after Indian Home Minister P. Chidambaram said last month that the Indian Maoists were acquiring arms from Bangladesh, Myanmar and “possibly Nepal”.
The home secretary said there was no evidence to suggest that India’s Maoists were obtaining arms from Nepal.
There was, he said, some contact between the Indian Maoists and Nepal’s Maoist party but India’s Maoist movement was a “home-grown movement” whose ideology was different from that of Nepal’s Maoist party.
While Nepal’s Maoists – once an underground organisation that fought a 10-year civil war – had opted for parliamentary democracy, Pillai said the Indian Maoists were still pursuing the path of armed revolution. “There’s an ideological difference,” he said.
The 10-member delegation led by Pillai discussed with his counterpart Govinda Prasad Kusum security issues not just between India and Nepal but in the broader perspective of South Asia. They agreed that sharing of intelligence and border management must be strengthened to prevent cross-border terrorism.
Pillai said the Maoist issue – violence by Indian Maoists and street protests by Nepal’s Maoists – was not discussed. Nor was there a proposal to fence the nearly 1,800-km-long border between the two countries.
However, both sides have agreed to increase the meetings between border state authorities and boost contacts with civil and security administrations.
Though the text of a new extradition treaty – first signed between India and Nepal in 1855 and updated in 1953 – was ready, Pillai said it required a political process to be inked. This, he said, required consultations at the highest level with the cabinet and parliament of both countries.
India has also renewed its pledge to set up an academy to train Nepal’s police force at an expense of Rs.3,200 million.
The next home secretary-level talks will be held in New Delhi in 2010.