By Rabi Raj Thapa
The border issue between Nepal and India regarding Limpiadhura and Lipulek is already there as the bone of contention between the two good neighbors. Recently, a case over the gruesome murder of a member of the parliament of Bangladesh Anbarul Ajim Anar and his extradition is putting fuel on the fire between the cordial relationships between three SAARC regional member countries.
When Nepal Police arrested one of the suspects, Mohammad Siam Hussain, in Nepal while the MP of Bangladesh Anbarul Ajim was murdered in India. Nepal Police says that the suspect entered Nepal via the Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) to hide in Nepal. Hence, this heinous and gruesome murder case has now become an issue of common concern and challenge to all three responsible crime investigation authorities of India, Bangladesh and Nepal because the crime occurred in India; the victim and suspect both are citizens of Bangladesh and the suspect is arrested in Nepal.
As there is no bilateral and trilateral agreement between the countries concerned, extradition of the suspect (not yet convicted) has become a complicated issue. But the conventional wisdom says that the common practice of extraditing arrested fugitives is to send them back to the same country through the same entry point when possible. In this particular case, if Nepal Police has evidence of the entry-point of Mohammed S. Hussain, it will solve the extradition matter more amicably. But as the arrested person has an unconfirmed suspicion of involvement in a gold smuggling case, this will drag the case deeper into multi-facet criminal involvement man-slaughter along with involvement in organized crime.
In the past, when the Bhutanese government was forced to exile Bhutanese citizens of Nepalese origin, they were forcefully expelled from Bhutan to India and then forced to enter Nepal via the Nepal-Indian open border. But when Nepal tried to revert them to their country of origin through the same entry point; they were not permitted to enter by the Government of India.
As far as Nepal and India are concerned, there has been a long-standing open border that sometimes poses practical and legal complications. Since the proliferation of organized crime groups (OCGs) and organized crime networks in South Asia, the Middle East and the world at large; there are many examples of such multinational organized crime damaging very cordial diplomatic bilateral and multilateral relationships among the good neighbor into blame-game and animosity to hostility and even border skirmishes.
All such cases ultimately may turn such an exemplary, unique and historical Nepal-India open border into cross-criminal-infested conflict areas. But how far Nepal and India can endure and sustain it is difficult to answer but the time has come to find and sort out the best alternative – that can be to regulate the border at least.
As far as Nepal is concerned, it is bordered by only two countries, India and China. Nepal has over 1,850 kilometres on the East, South and Western sides of its international border with India. In the same way, Nepal has around 1,414 kilometers of rugged mountainous border with China.
As far as India is concerned Nepal has ethnic, economic, cultural, religious and even matrimonial ties but they can be mistaken with other nationalities of South Asia like Bangladesh, Bhutan and Pakistan. Nepal-India border issues demand more than standing police, and paramilitary uniformed forces to have better relations, coordination and management. Unfortunately, time and again, both countries seem to have passive-aggressive attitudes and behaviors which sometimes turn from unfriendly to hostile and confrontational.
Therefore, it is high time for both Nepalese and Indian governments to come forward and sit down at the table and sort out bilateral border issues more harmoniously with amicable solutions. If India and China; fought a war in 1962 and sometimes went through bloody confrontations and fatal fist-fights but their warring commanding generals sat down to solve their differences amicably, why can Nepalese and Indian responsible stakeholders sit down and solve their differences amicably?
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect People’s Review’s editorial stance.
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