By Sudeshna Sarkar, IANS
Kathmandu : People in Nepal have begun expressing indignation over the sudden handover of kidney racket kingpin Amit Kumar to the Indian authorities, calling it another instance of India’s big-brother attitude towards its neighbour.
P.B. Rana in the Kathmandu Post daily called it a matter of national shame and a “treachery to the nation and the people”.
“Nepal Police succumbed to pressure from the prime minister (Girija Prasad Koirala) who utterly disregarded the existing rules and regulations of the country and its sovereign rights to investigate any crime committed by a foreign nation,” an outraged Rana wrote in the daily Monday.
“Dr Amit has been handed over to the Indian authorities without duly following the legal procedure (in Nepal).”
Amit, nicknamed “Dr Horror”, is the alleged mastermind of a kidney racket unearthed near Delhi. He is said to be behind 600 illegal kidney transplants.
Rana also pointed out that in the past, when Nepal was fighting its Maoist insurgency which claimed over 13,000 lives, India repeatedly ignored Nepal’s pleas to hand over Maoist leaders arrested in India.
Top Maoist leader Chandra Prakash Gajurel was arrested from Chennai Airport in 2003 for using a forged passport and trying to fly out to Germany.
A year later, another senior Maoist leader Mohan Vaidya was held from Siliguri town in West Bengal where he had gone for eye treatment.
Despite Nepal’s requests to India for the deportation of the two key leaders, India refused to do so, saying they would have to be tried in Indian courts first.
The duo were released only in 2006 after the fall of King Gyanendra’s government and the signing of a peace agreement between the Maoists and the opposition parties, which was said to be secretly brokered by India in New Delhi.
Nepal’s largest newspaper Kantipur also started receiving letters from angry readers, expressing outrage at the gross violation of the country’s laws by the prime minister.
“Is it in accordance with justice that Kumar was handed over to India at the order of the prime minister?” asked Rajesh Shrestha from Lalitpur. “Can anybody be above law? Has the Nepal government taken any initiative to have Nepalis, who have been arrested abroad, to be deported home?”
Another glaring evidence of India’s disdain to extradite other criminals wanted by Interpol is that of Charles Sobhraj, who is currently serving a life sentence for murder in Nepal.
In the 1970s, Nepal, Thailand, Malaysia and other countries wanted Sobhraj on murder charges and an Interpol red corner notice had been issued for his arrest.
He was caught in India and sentenced to prison for lesser crimes by the Indian authorities, who refused to hand him over to the other governments wanting to try him for murder.