Thursday, May 26, 2005
No links with Indian intelligence: Bhattarai
IANS
Kathmandu
A top Maoist leader who met Indian communist leaders has vehemently denied that the meeting was arranged with the help of Indian intelligence.
An Indian newspaper report of Wednesday stating that the Indian intelligence arranged the meeting between Baburam Bhattarai and Indian communist leader Prakash Karat was "utterly baseless, imaginary, erroneous and an attempt at character assassination", Bhattarai said in a statement from the underground.
In a statement issued on Wednesday night, purported to be from Bhattarai, he described the media report as "utterly false, mal-intentioned" and an attempt to sabotage the pro-democracy movement in Nepal.
The two-page statement did not outright deny the meeting between Bhattarai, a controversial leader of the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist, and Karat, general secretary of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) in New Delhi. Bhattarai and Karat studied together in New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University.
Karat has already confirmed the meeting took place.
A section of the media had reported that Bhattarai was being "quietly chaperoned around" by "Indian intelligence agencies".
The report triggered a furore in Nepal.
Bhattarai, an architect-turned-revolutionary, once the second in command of the banned Maoist party, started hitting the headlines this year with reports that he had been stripped of his post and responsibilities after serious differences with Prachanda.
The statement attributed to Bhattarai said the report sought to question Bhattarai's "patriotism" by portraying him as pro-Indian.
The statement said Bhattarai and some senior rebel leaders had been assigned the task of agreeing to a common programme with Nepal's parliamentary parties opposed to King Gyanendra.
It added that Bhattarai had no links with Indian intelligence agencies.
"I am stunned since I was the person who has advocated the unequal Sugauli Treaty between India and Nepal has to be scrapped for Nepal's development," the Maoist leader said.
The Sugauli Treaty, signed in 1815, is a thorn in Nepal's flesh.
Signed between Nepal and the British East India Company, the treaty conceded about a third of Nepalese territory, including Sikkim, the present Indian states of Uttaranchal and Himachal Pradesh and much of the Terai region to India.
Though superseded in 1923 by a "treaty of perpetual peace and friendship", it still haunts the Nepalese leadership.
The statement purported to be from Bhattarai also seeks to downplay reports of a rift between him and the top Maoist leader in Nepal known as Prachanda.
Reports of a rift between Bhattarai and Prachanda have also been circulated by Nepal's army, which has been fighting the insurgents for nine years.
© HT Media Ltd. 2004.