Parties sceptical about media reports from India saying New Delhi will resume military aid to Nepal.
Within days of King Gyanendra avowing “total and unflinching” support to multi-party democracy, human rights and rule of law at the Asia-Africa summit in Jakarta, security forces in Nepal continued arrests on political leaders and ransacked the office of the largest communist party in the capital.
On Tuesday afternoon, security forces arrested Gagan Thapa, leader of the student wing of the Nepali Congress party of former prime minister Girija Prasad Koirala, and two more student leaders, Sandesh Adhikari and Subodh Acharya.
The trio was arrested by security personnel in plainclothes from Adhikari’s residence without any warrant. The arrests come a day after masked security personnel stormed the office of the largest communist party in the kingdom, the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (UML).
The UML was holding a condolence meeting on Monday following the demise of Shadhana Adhikari, widow of Manmohan Adhikari, the first communist prime minister of Nepal, when security personnel entered the party office and arrested a member. The attack united Nepal’s opposition parties, lawyers and human rights activists, who on Tuesday condemned the incident.
The parties which flayed state interference include the Rastriya Janashakti Party floated by former prime minister Surya Bahadur Thapa, deposed premier Sher Bahadur Deuba’s Nepali Congress (Democratic) Party and opposition leader Girija Prasad Koirala’s Nepali Congress Party.
Senior political parties also said they would wait and watch for an official statement from India about its policy on renewing military assistance to King Gyanendra’s government instead of going by media reports. Last week, after King Gyanendra met Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Jakarta at the Asia-Africa summit, the monarch reportedly said that New Delhi had agreed to resume military assistance to Nepal. “On the one hand, we have a report saying India would resume suspended military assistance to Nepal unconditionally and on the other, another report describing how masked securitymen arrested a student leader from a condolence meeting, intimidated members and vandalised the party office. This clearly shows how India’s military aid would be used to repress democratic forces,” UML spokesman Pradip Nepal said. PARTY MOVE Action against Manisha father Kathmandu, pti: The Nepal Congress party has initiated action against one of its Central Working Committee members, father of Indian film star Manisha Koirala, for allegedly supporting the February 1 royal coup.
The CWC has initiated disciplinary action against Prakash Koirala for expressing views in favour of King Gyanendra’s takeover of power, a statement issued by the party has said. Koirala’s recent statement, that termed the King’s move as “positive”, came up during Monday’s CWC meeting. The leader, son of Nepal’s first elected prime minister B P Koirala, had also criticised the joint movement launched by five political parties to oppose the coup as a futile exercise.
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