Kathmandu, November 12. In the run-up to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the United Kingdom, British-Gurkha Army Ex-Servicemen’s Organisation (BGAESO) has appealed to the host country’s Prime Minister, David Cameron, to press for an end to the blockade that India has been imposing against an earthquake-ravaged Nepal after the country’s popularly-elected Constituent Assembly promulgated a constitution on August 20, 2015.
The Indian government has been seeking amendment to the just-promulgated constitution to address concerns of United Democratic Madheshi Front leaders, BGAESO President Padma Sundar Limbu, General Secretary Chhiring Sherpa, International Department Chief Uttam Prasad stated in a press release. .
BGAESO pointed that the UDMF demand to carve out a separate Tarai-Madhesh province by dissociating itself from the hills and the Himalayas will make Nepal Madhesh-locked. The retired service personnel’s organisation pointed that Clause 10 of the 1950’s Koshi Barrage Agreement has limited Nepal’s water sovereignty to Koshi. It said removal of this clause will free Nepal from the landlocked status.
The demand for a separate Madhesh Province is an Indian strategy to retain Indian domination in Nepal and grab Nepal’s water resources, the organisation said. It said the demand may create a situation not different from Sikkimisation, Fijiisation and Crimea (assimilated into Russia through popular referendum).
India has been letting protesters use the no-man’s-land and its territories bordering Nepal to pelt stones and hurl petrol bombs targeting public and private properties, the press release states.
It pointed that Indian government’s claims that Nepali territories adjoining the border are unsafe for movement of people and transportation are untrue, pointing that there are obstructions only on a few customs points along the 1,800-km-long border.
Because of the shortage of petroleum products resulting from the blockade, traffic movement has come to a halt. The shortage of foodstuffs and medicine is giving rise to grave humanitarian crises in a country trying to recover from the devastating earthquake of April, 2015 (the April 25 and May 12 quakes killed around 10,000 people, injured thousands, rendered thousands homeless and cause infrastructure losses worth around 800 billion).
The blockade has forced Nepal to seek alternative trade and transit routes that pass through remote Himalayan regions, it said, adding that the national economy is bleeding with trade and commerce coming to a complete halt.
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