 |
Kathmandu Wednesday April 25, 2001 Baishakh 12, 2058.
|
Close
pension camps
The government must thor oughly investigate
the allegations made in this newspaper Tuesday that an ex-Indian Gorkha soldier who came
to the capital to collect his pension was abducted and taken to India where he is
presently confined. The allegations made by the victim is serious and if proved true, the
government must face the consequences of not being able to protect its own citizens in
their own land from alien hands. What are the government of the day – currently run
by the Nepali Congress – the Royal Nepal Army, the Police and other security
enforcement agencies doing while a Nepali is drugged and taken out of his own country? In
India, he is apparently being detained for allegedly passing on "information" to
the Pakistani intelligence agency, ISI. A number of things needs to be cleared at this
stage and a few other things set right. The abducted Nepal has claimed that he is being
falsely charged as being an ISI agent and is being detained in a jail in Lucknow in India.
He has also alleged that a number of other Nepalis who had served in the Indian army were
also being investigated. The Nepali had served in the Indian army fort 22 years before
retiring only a few months ago. Under the circumstances, is it in fitness of things for
the government to take things lightly? It obviously is not. The government must show that
its concerns for Nepali citizens are genuine and take up matters at the highest level to
wash the slur cast on the Nepali soldiering community. The government try to free all
Nepalis detained on such false and fabricated charges.
The government may or may not realise it but
it is high time that the foreign pension camps took over by Nepali organisations or
agencies such as the Royal Nepal Army or the Finance Ministry or the Rastra Bank or any
other Nepali agency. The British Army does not need pension camps to disburse pensions.
Why should the Indian Army be allowed to do so? The pension camps manned by foreign army
personnel can be used, it must be noted, not merely for paying out pensions to retired
soldiers but also for other purposes as well. The Koirala government will do this country
a singular service if it can close down all foreign pension camps and assign either
government agencies or financial institutions such as banks to do the job. But this would
be too much to expect from a government which cannot protect its own citizens in their own
country from foreign hands.
Other Stories
|
