KATHMANDU, NOVEMBER 3

Nepali Congress lawmaker of Karnali Province Jeevan Bahadur Shahi has expressed anger at the Government of Nepal for not even feeling the need to investigate allegation of Chinese encroachment of Nepali land in Humla district.

Shahi, who had led the NC Parliamentary monitoring team’s visit to Nepal’s border with China in Humla, trekked for 11 days and found that China had encroached Nepali land in multiple places in the border area. He said his team had concluded that the Chinese side had encroached 60 to 70 hectare Nepali land on the border.

Shahi said China had constructed at least nine buildings on Nepali land in Lapcha Limi area of Namkha Rural Municipality of Humla district. He said the Chinese side had encroached areas up to three kilometres where the Nepali side had built a road 10 years ago. “Ten years ago, the Chinese side did not object to our road construction. They rather showed us where the border lay, now they claim the area to be their territory. How can we accept their claim,” Shahi wondered.

Shahi said there are eight pillars on Humla’s northern border — Pillar No 9, 10, 11, 12, 5 (1), 6 (1), 7 (1) and 8 (1), adding that Pillar No 12 was damaged. He added that the Chinese side had replaced Pillar No 12 in such a way that Nepal lost a large chunk of territory.

He said the pillar should have been repaired under joint observation of the authorities of Nepal and China, but the Chinese side unilaterally replaced the pillar.

Stating that there was no joint monitoring of the border for the last 14 years in Humla district, Shahi said the Government of Nepal had not bothered to send a team of experts to the disputed area. “The government does not have the courage to raise the issue with China,” he added.

Shahi said China had even manipulated the time zone in Humla district as a result of which the watches showed Chinese time zone deep into Nepali territory.

If we go to Rupaidiha on the southern border, right across the border, we see Indian time zone and on our side of the border we see Nepali time zone, but this is not the case with our northern border. Our watches showed Chinese time zone deep into our territory — up to 60 kilometres in Nyalu Lake area of Limi valley.

This is also a kind of encroachment, he said. Shahi said Pillar No 6 (1) was a Nepali pillar, but was on the Chinese side.

Earlier, Shahi had said Chinese security personnel had fired tear gas canisters at some of his team members when they went to the border area to inspect pillars. A Daily Telegraph report today quoted Nepali politicians as saying that China had annexed more than 150 hectare from Nepal.

Chinese soldiers also allegedly moved border pillars further into Nepali territory in the district of Gorkha. Further annexations occurred in Rasuwa, Sindhupalchowk and Sankuwasabha districts after Chinese engineers in the Tibet Autonomous Region diverted the flow of rivers acting as a natural boundary and claimed the previously submerged Nepali territory, the newspaper reported.

Spokesperson for Nepal’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs Sewa Lamsal said news reports about China encroaching Nepali land was not true. “Our foreign minister has already made it clear that we have no border dispute with China,” she said. China’s foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin dismissed the media report about encroaching Nepali territory, said Reuters.

Feature image: File