By Sudeshna Sarkar, IANS,
Kathmandu : As outrage grew in his party over an Indian court sentencing 11 of its leaders to imprisonment, Nepal’s new Maoist Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai Tuesday held a meeting with the Indian Ambassador to Nepal Jayant Prasad and formally asked him to convey to New Delhi that the verdict should be annulled.
The prime minister’s office juggled Bhattarai’s schedule to include a last-minute appointment with the Indian envoy Tuesday noon, Bhattarai’s media advisor Ram Rijan Yadav told IANS.
The meeting was arranged after Maoist MPs brought to the prime minister’s notice that the Patna High Court in the Indian state of Bihar had last week slapped jail terms and fines on 11 Maoist leaders, including two former ministers and six sitting MPs, in absentia.
During the 10-year “People’s War” fought by the Maoists in Nepal from 1996, many of their leaders lived in hiding in Indian cities, taking advantage of the porous border between India and Nepal.
Seven years ago, Bihar police raided five hotels in state capital Patna and arrested the 11 Maoist leaders, imprisoning them in Beur Jail for over two years.
In 2006, after the Maoists agreed to give up violence in Nepal and joined the parliamentary parties to stage a pro-democracy movement that ousted King Gyanendra’s army-backed regime, Nepal’s new government requested India to release the Nepali Maoist leaders held in various Indian prisons.
Though Bihar released the 11 on bail, last week it resumed the cases against them, charging them with being involved in activities that threatened India’s sovereignty. These include colluding with the Indian Maoists in anti-India activities.
The sentenced in absentia Nepali Maoist leaders include two former ministers Lokendra Bahadur Bista Magar and Hit Bahadur Tamang, and six sitting Maoist MPs.
The sentencing created ripples in Nepal this week with one of the sentenced, Maoist member of parliament Tara Gharti Magar, raising the issue in parliament and demanding an explanation from the prime minister, who is also the deputy chief of the party.
After Tara Gharti Magar told the State Affairs Committee of parliament Sunday that Bihar police were harassing the locals who had stood bail guarantor for the 11 jailed leaders, a delegation of Maoist MPs met the prime minister and home and foreign ministers, asking them to start diplomatic correspondence with India for the annulling of the verdict.
Bhattarai himself said that in the context of the changes in Nepal since 2004, there was no longer any rationale in the Indian court’s verdict.
The jailed Maoist leaders have all along maintained that they were not involved in any anti-India activities but were in India either for medical treatment or to seek support for the pro-democracy movement in Nepal.
They also say the charges against them were baseless.
Two other top leaders from the ruling Maoist party, Mohan Vaidya and C.P. Gajurel, were also imprisoned in India’s West Bengal and Tamil Nadu states respectively.
Some of the released prisoners eventually became ministers and MPs. At least one was nominated as Nepal’s ambassador to India but the proposal was rejected by New Delhi.
Bhattarai is expected to visit India soon after attending the 66th UN General Assembly in New York this month and the verdict is bound to upset his party’s ties with India.
(Sudeshna Sarkar can be contacted at [email protected])